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- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
In 1909 Edgar Wallace wrote 24 short stories featuring Police Contable Lee of the London "D" Division for publication in the British weekly magazine Ideas. A number of these were reprinted in Ideas in 1928-1929 (some under new titles) and in other magazines. Nine of the P.C. Lee stories were later included in the 1961 collection The Undisclosed Client and Other Stories. So far as could be ascertained, the only story in the series that appeared in any collection published during Wallace's lifetime was "Change," which was re-written (without P.C. Lee) as "Mr. Sigee's Relations" for The Lady Called Nita, published by George Newnes, London, in 1930. Contents: Mr. Simmons' Profession A Man of Note For Jewey's Laggin' Pear-Drops How He Lost His Moustache Sergeant Run-A-Mile The Sentimental Burglar Change A Case for Angel, Esquire Contempt Confidence Fireless Telegraphy The General Practitioner The Snatchers The Gold Mine Mouldy the Scrivener Mrs. Flindin's Lodger The Story of a Great Cross-Examination Tanks The Silence of P.-C. Hirley The Power of the Eye The Convict's Daughter The Derby Favourite The Last Adventure Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was an English writer. As well as journalism, Wallace wrote screen plays, poetry, historical non-fiction, 18 stage plays, 957 short stories and over 170 novels, 12 in 1929 alone. More than 160 films have been made of Wallace's work.
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Police Constable Lee: Complete 24 Book Collection
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Table of Contents
Mr. Simmons’ Profession
The magistrate looked over his glasses at the prisoner in the dock, and the prisoner nodded in the friendliest way.
The clerk at his little desk before the magistrate jerked his head round in the direction of the dock.
“Were you drunk last night?” he asked pointedly. “I were in a manner of speakin’ excited,” said the prisoner carefully.
“You are charged with being drunk. Are you guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty,” said the accused loudly.
The clerk nodded, and a constable made his way to the box.
A stolid-looking constable, who moved with surprising agility, and glanced at the resentful prisoner with a twinkling eye.
“P.C. Lee 333 ‘D’,” he began, “I was on duty last night—”
“Hold hard,” said the aggressive prisoner, “let’s have all this took down in black an’ white.”
He fished out from the depths of his mud-stained overcoat a tattered memorandum book and the stump of pencil.
“Now then,” he said sternly, “what did you say your name was, me man?”
“P.C. Lee, of ‘D’,” repeated the goodnatured constable.
“Oh!”
Very deliberately the accused closed his book and replaced it. He looked benevolently round, then:
“Guilty,” he said.
“Seven and six or five days,” said the magistrate. “The fact of it is, sir,” said the accused man later — he was sitting in the waiting room whilst his wife was collecting the necessary three half-crowns— “I didn’t catch your name.”
“I dessay,” said P.C. Lee with a smile.
“I respect you, Mr. Lee,” said the prisoner oratorically, “as if you was me own brother — hopin’ there’s no offence.”
“None whatever,” said P.C. Lee, “an’ talkin’ about brothers, where’s your brother Elf?”
“Elf?” said the other wonderingly, “Elf? Why, he’s in Orstralian.”
“I don’t knew a public house of that name,” said P.C. Lee reflectively. “but I dessay I shall find him.”
P.C. Lee lives quite close to me. We have met professionally when he was severely reticent and remarkably polite and respectful: we have met privately, when he was more communicative.
Inspector Fowler, to whom I mentioned the fact of our acquaintance, had nothing but praise for Lee.
“He’s a remarkable chap,” he said enthusiastically. “He’s practically the last court of appeal in the Notting Dale district. They take him all their little disputes to settle and he holds an informal court at his lodgings.”
For P.C. Lee lives in the heart of Notting Dale, in a tiny house near Arbuckle Street. and sometimes, when he’s off duty, and when there is a slack time in his arbitration court, he comes to me to smoke a pipe and talk shop.
“Crime,” reflected P.C. Lee, “ain’t always murder, nor highway robbery, nor forgin’ cheques for £10,000. That’s the crimes authors — present company excepted — write about. It’s generally a tale about how a detective with whiskers fails to discover the lost diamonds, an’ a clean. shaven feller, who plays the fiddle, works it out on paper that the true robber was the Archbishop of Canterbury, But crime, as we know it in the ‘D’ Division, is mostly made up of ‘bein’ a suspected person’ or ‘loiterin’ with intent’ or ‘being found on unoccupied premises for the purpose of committin’ a felony’; or, as you have seen yourself,, ‘drunk an’ usin’ abusive language’.
“I’ve done all kinds of duty, plain clothes an’ otherwise, an’ although I’ve had my share of big cases, an’ have been to the Old Bailey scores an’ scores of times, the gen’ral run of life has been takin’ violent an’ insultin’ ‘drunks’ to the station, an’ pullin’ people in for petty larceny.
“One of the most extraordinary chaps I’ve had to deal with was a man by the name of Simmons. He moves into 64, Highfield Street, an’ I got a tip from headquarters to look after him. A quiet little man, who smoked a briar pipe, an’ went about his work sayin’ nothing to anybody.
“He was a bachelor so far as I could find out, an’ there was an old woman, who was his aunt, who kept house for him.
“The rum thing was that he didn’t associate with any of the ‘heads’.
“There was a nice lot of lads in my district. Nick Moss who did seven years for armed burglary; Teddy Gail, who did five for runnin’ a snide factory*; Arthur Westing, the tale-pitcher — Lord! I could fill a book with their names.
>[* A counterfeit coin manufactory.]
“Somehow, they knew he was in a queer line of business, an’ naturally they tried to be friendly with him — but he had nothin’ to do with them, an’ that made ’em wild. They tried to find out what his lay was, but he was as close as an oyster. They came to me, some of ‘em, an’ worked the conversation round innocently to Simmons.
“Nick Moss was the most curious.
“‘That’s a queer chap in 64, Mr. Lee,’ he says. ‘Can’t make him out.’
“‘Can’t you?’ says I.
“‘No,’ says Nick, shakin’ his head. ‘Do you think he’s quite straight, Mr. Lee?’
“‘I hope so,’ says I. ‘It’d be a dreadful thing if a dishonest feller came into this pure an’ innercent neighbourhood corruptin’ the morals of its upright citizens.’
“‘It would,’ says Nick.
“To tell you the truth, I had no more idea of what Simmons’ game was than they had. My instructions were worded rather curiously. ‘Watch Simmons, but don’t interfere with him.’
“I thought once that he must be a nark*, but the station Inspector told me he wasn’t on the books, an’ none of our C.I.D. men knew him. All I knew about him was that from time to time he used to go away for two or three days at a time carryin’ his little brown bag an’ smokin’ his pipe. My mate, who’s an energetic young chap, stopped him one night when he was coming home an’ asked to see inside of his bag.
[* Police spy.]
“But there was nothin’ except a paper of sandwiches an’ a couple of short luggage straps. The sandwiches was wrapped up in a paper that bore the name of a Chelmsford confectioners, an’ we watched for the Chelmsford report to see if there had been a burglary — but nothin’ appeared. I ‘don’t know whether Simmons reported the matter; so far as we knew at the station he didn’t, but a few days afterwards my mate was transferred to ‘R’ Division, and got a nasty letter from the Yard tellin’ him not to exceed his duty.
“One night, soon after this, I was standin’ on duty at the corner of Ladbroke Grove, when a woman came to me sobbin’.
“I recognised her at once. She was the wife of Crawley Hopper, a chap well known to the police as a ladder larcernist.*
[* A “ladder larceny” is a definite form of housebreaking. Whilst a family is at dinner a ladder is placed against a bedroom window, the thief enters and clears the bedroom of portable valuables.]
“‘Mr. Lee,’ she sobs, ‘look at my eye…!’
“‘I wouldn’t mind the beatin’,’ she says, ‘but he’s took up with another girl.’
“‘Go home to your mother, Mrs. Hopper,’ I says, ‘He’s in drink an’ he’ll be sorry in the morning.’
“‘He’ll he sorry tonight,’ she says savagely, ‘because he was the man that did the Highbury job last Wednesday.’
“‘Oh!’ I says — we’d been on the lookout for the man who did the Highbury job—’in that case I’ll ask you for a few particulars.’
“The end of it was, I found Crawley in a little pub standin’ drinks all round. He had his arm round the neck of his new girl an’ I beckoned him outside.
“‘I want you, Hopper,’ I says.
“‘What for?’ says Hopper, as white as a sheet.
“‘The Highbury job. Come along quietly to the station.’
“‘It’s a fair cop,’ says Hopper, an’ went like a lamb.
“‘Who gave me away?’ he says.
“‘Information received,’ I answered.
“He nodded his head.
“‘I think I know the lady’s name,’ he says, ‘an’ when I come out she’ll know mine,’ he says.
Crawley had lots of pals, an’ as soon as they found e’d been pinched, they had a whip round to get the money together for a mouthpiece (as they call a lawyer), an’ naturally they went to Simmons.
“From all accounts, Nick Moss an’ a feller named Peter called on him one night.
“‘We are making a collection, Mr. Simmons,’ says Nick, ‘for a friend of ours that got into a bit of trouble.’
“‘What kind of trouble?’ says the little man.
“He stood in the doorway in his shirtsleeves smokin’ his pipe most furious.
“‘To tell you the truth,’ says Nick frankly, ‘he’s been pinched.’
“‘By the police?’ says Simmons.
“‘By the police,’ says Nick.
“Simmons shook his head.
“‘It’s no good comin’ to me,’ he says. ‘I don’t pay a single penny to help criminals,’ he says, cool as a cucumber.
“‘What?’ says Nick wrathfully, ‘you undersized little crook! For two pins I’d scruff you!”
“An’ with that he reached out a handy left — but somehow it never reached Simmons, an’ before he knew what was what a pair of hands like steel clamps caught his arm, an’ he found himself chucked into the street, an’ the door banged.
Nick an’ the feller Peter waited for ten minutes bangin’ at the door an’ askin’ Simmons to be a man an’ come out an’ be smashed, but Simmons took no notice, an’ just then I strolled up and cleared away the little crowd that had collected.
“Nick was so wild that he wouldn’t go at first, but I persuaded him, first by kind words, an’ then by a smack on the head. After that I got the tip that the boys were waitin’ for Mr. Simmons to do him in, an’ when I saw him I gave him a friendly warnin’. He smiled as though the idea of his being done in was an amusin’ one, but knew our lads too well to see any joke in it.
“Sure enough they laid for him, six of the brightest boys in Nottin’ Dale.
“The first I knew about it was from hearin’ shouts of ‘Murder!’ an’’Police!’ an’ I ran as fast as I could, blowin’ my whistle.
“I found Simmons with his back to the wall, his head bleedin’ but grinnin’ cheerfully. He had a life preserver his han’ an’ two of the lads was sleepin’ peacefully on the pavement.
“‘Hullo,’ says Simmons, ‘just in time.’
“‘Was that you shoutin’?’ I says.
“‘Not me,’ says he, with a chuckle. ‘I rather think it was a gent named Moss — you’ll know him by the bump on his forehead.’
“They left Simmons alone after this. They used to scowl at him, an’ he used to grin at them, but they never tried any more tricks. Nick Moss was rather bitter.
“‘A little feller like that didn’t ought to be strong — do he, Mr. Lee?’ he says indignantly. ‘It’s deceptful, that’s what I call it.’
“Failin’ to get satisfaction in one way they tried another. They did their best to put him away. There wasn’t a thief in London, nor a receivin’ shop either, where they not did make inquiries to find out what Simmons’ particular hobby was. But for a long time they worked without any result.
“One day this chap Peter I told you about was standin’ on the arrival platform at Euston, an’ he sees Simmons get out of the Manchester train. Peter was a bag-claimer an’ used to do quite an extensive line of business at big railway stations, pickin’ up other people’s bags beggin’ pardon if they found him at it, an’ he was too busy to think much about Simmons till that night when he was talking things over to Nick at the little pub.
“‘Manchester!’ says Nick, quite upset. ‘Lord love a duck! Why, ain’t you heard the news?’
“‘No,’ says Peter.
“‘The Manchester an’ Salisbury Bank was cleared out last night — eight thousand pounds taken an’ the chap got clear away.’
“Peter whistled.
“‘He’s one of the swell mob, that’s what he is.’ Says Nick excited, ‘an’ if I don’t put him away my name’s not Nick Moss.’ Which as a matter of fact,” commented P.C. Lee thoughtfully, “it wasn’t.
“‘Go out an’ get a late paper,’ says Nick, tremblin’ with excitement; ‘perhaps there’ll be a description of the feller that did it.’
“So Peter went out an’ bought one, an’ together they read it over.
“‘Here it is,’ says Nick, who ain’t much of a reader. “Thomas Cadaver was executed this mornin’ at Manchester for — no, that ain’t it — here we are—’ an’ he read in the late news: ‘“Description of the suspected man: short, strongly built, clean shaven, wearing a black bowler hat—”
‘That’s him for a dollar,’ says Nick, an’ round they came to me with the paper. I was just goin’ on duty at time.
“‘Mr. Lee,’ says Nick, ‘we’ve got a good thing for you.’
“Good,’ I says. ‘Did you buy it or find it?’
“‘It’s the Manchester Bank bloke,’ says Nick, very solemn, an’ handed me the paper. I read it carefully.
“‘I’ll take it down to the station,’ I says.
“There was a lot of news in the paper that night, but the news that mostly interested the boys was that Crawley Hopper had been found not guilty. There was some technical mistake in framin’ the indictment, an’ the evidence was a bit contradictory an’ between the two Crawley got off.
He was discharged at six o’clock, an’ I met him at eight. He come up to me, an’ I could see he’d been celebratin’ the occasion, for he was what I’d call ‘nasty drunk’.
“‘Hullo, P.C. Lee,’ he says, ‘seen my missis?’
“‘Which one’?’ I says.
“‘You know which one, he says with an ugly look, ‘the one that gave me away.’
“‘Don’t talk foolish,’ I says, ‘nobody gave you away,’
“‘All right,’ he says, turnin’ to go, ‘I’ll know all about it very soon.’
“There are instincts that come to a man,” said P.C. Lee gravely, “that oughtn’t to be suppressed. My instinct told me to arrest him — on any charge. To give him a night at the station. But I hesitated. He’d just been released from prison an’ was naturally excited. I didn’t want to kick a man who was down, so I let him go.
“At eleven thirty I was in Pointer Street, when I saw him comin’ towards me. There was somethin’ in his air that I didn’t like, an’ I stopped him.
“‘Where are you goin’, Crawley?’ I says.
“He sort of hesitated before he answered; then he ran. But I caught him in a dozen yards.
“‘Let go!’ he hissed an’ he struck at me.
“It was a stingin’ blow in the face, an’ I felt somethin’ warm an’ sticky. I thought he must have used a knife me, so I took my stick to him an’ that quietened him.
“With the help of another constable I got him to the station.
“My face was covered with blood, but I couldn’t feel the cut, an’ as soon as I got him into the steel pen the Station Inspector ordered one of the men to go for the divisional surgeon.
“Then Crawley spoke.
“‘It’s all right,’ he says in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘he not wounded.’
“‘Where did the blood come from?’ says the Inspector.
‘Off my hands,’ says Crawley, and showed us.
“‘I’ve done in my missis,’ he says simply.
“An’ it was the truth, for we found the poor creature stone dead in her mother’s house. It was one of the most dreadful things that had ever happened in our division for a long time, but it wasn’t what you’d call a paper murder, for there was no mystery about it. It was just a low down, sordid wicked murder, an’ Crawley’s trial lasted two hours, an’ he was sentenced to death. There’s always a lot of mad people who’ll sign a petition to get a brute like Crawley reprieved an’ there was the usual procession of old ladies walkin’ about askin’ people to sign papers to save the life of this ‘poor creature’.
“All the boys did their best in the way of gettin’ mouthpieces but when it came to signin’ petitions they wouldn’t.
“Nick put the situation to me.
“‘I’m a thief, Mr. Lee.’ he says, quite serious; ‘you know all about me. I was born a thief, an’ will die a thief ‘ — but I’ve got no use for a man who does a thing like Crawley did. We did our best to prove him innercent, but now there’s no doubt about his bein’ guilty he’s got to go through it.’
“I hadn’t much bother with ’em on my beat durin’ the weeks followin’ the trial. Everybody was subdued an’ upset, an’ I had time to keep my eye on Simmons. I’d got a fuller account of the wanted man from the Manchester police, an’ I must confess that it filled the bill so far as appearances went. We reported the matter to Scotland Yard, an’ they sent one of their best men down to have a look at him.
“But he poured cold water on the idea — in fact, he was very much amused.
“‘Him!’ he said. ‘Don’t you know who he is?’
“‘No, sir,’ I says, an’ I waited for him to tell me, but he didn’t.
“I missed Simmons for a bit. With the Crawley business finished, an’ almost forgotten, things began to liven up in our quarter, an’ what with one thing an’ another I didn’t trouble about Simmons.
“I saw him one night. He was walkin’ home briskly an’ nodded to me. He passed me when suddenly he stopped an’ walked back.
“‘I’ve got a message for you,’ he says. ‘Crawley told me to tell you that if he’d taken your advice he wouldn’t have been where he was.’
“‘Crawley,’ I says puzzled, ‘Crawley’s dead.’
““I know that,’ he says quietly, ‘but he told me just before he dies.’
“‘How could you see him?’ I says.
“‘Oh, I saw him all right,’ he says, turnin’ away, ‘I’m the hangman!’”
A Man of Note
Once I hinted delicately to P.C. Lee that it was remarkable, considering his popularity not only with his superiors but with the man in the street equally with the man on the bench, that he had never achieved promotion. I did this with some trepidation because I feared that I might have disturbed a hornet’s nest of grievances, and the best fellow in the world is a wearisome bore if he has a grievance. But P.C. Lee was very frank. With no false shame he told me that it was a matter of education with him, and he was content to remain a first class constable.
“The force gen’rally,’ he said, “is filled with men who find no difficulty in passin’ the stiffest educational examination you can set ‘em. There isn’t a better educated police force in the world, as I’ve heard, than the Metropolitan — unless it’s the City.
“But I have not the patience to go in for schoolin’. I tried it once. Went to a private evenin’ class, an’ a chap wanted to teach me decimal fractions, but there didn’t seem much sense in it to me, although I dessay I’m wrong. I can write a report, an’ tell the truth, an’ know enough about the law to know when to arrest a man, an’ that’s about as much as I’m anxious to know. The fact that the River Danube empties itself into the Arctic Ocean doesn’t worry me, because the Arctic Ocean ain’t on my beat.
“I never deny that education is a good thing — in spite of its difficulty. Lots of people think that education has increased the number of criminals, but I say it has reduced ‘em. I once took a young fellow for embezzlement. He was a milkman, an’ his mother cried an’ carried on something dreadful.
‘“It’s what a board school education has done for my poor boy,’ she says, ‘fillin’ his head with stuff an’ nonsense.’
“But my own opinion was that if he’d been better educated he’d have had more sense than try to alter the customer’s account book so as to make it tally with his cash book. It’s ignorance that makes criminals, having no sense to look ahead, no imagination.
“There was a feller once,” reflected P.C. Lee, who gave a lecture at the Police Institute, an’ he said a very true thing: he said ‘True happiness you pay for in advance, false happiness you pay for afterwards’; and if criminals knew this there’d be no criminals. It’s because a chap doesn’t bother to think about tomorrow an’ the policeman who’s waitin’ round the corner to pinch him, that he finds the easiest way to make money is to take money. There are exceptions, of course, an’ a case in point, that shows how education sometimes works the wrong end first, was the case of Albert Walker.
“When I first knew Albert he was a little barefooted boy runnin’ wild in Lambeth. I was in the ‘L’ Division at the time. His parents were a bad lot: his father was in and out of prison most of the time, an’ his mother — well, got a livin’; it wasn’t much in the food line at home, but knowin’ how the poor help the poor, I should say that the neighbours kept him from starvin’. Then the School Board got hold of him, an’ from what I’ve heard he was a rare boy for learnin’, an’ sucked up education like a sponge till he was the best writer in the school an’ the best at arithmetic an’ geography.
“He was a prime favourite with the schoolmaster, who got him some old cast-off clothes to wear in place of his rags, an’ helped him in many ways. The school was on my beat, an’ I’ve often spoke to the boy, just a word of encouragement now an’ then. I never used to mention his father to him, because I didn’t want the kid to think I had any other reason for takin’ an interest in him. He wasn’t a bit shy, an’ would tell me how he’d taken prizes for reg’lar attendance an’ for geometry.
“The only time he ever spoke about his people was just after his father had gone down for nine months for stealin’ pewter pots.
“The boy was then well up in the school; he was a sort of pupil teacher now, an’ had just won a scholarship, an’ I was sayin’ how pleased I was. I specially bought him a little book called ‘A Man of Note’ which was all about a boy who rose to a wonderful position through study.
“‘Yes,’ he says, after thankin’ me, ‘I’m glad I’ve got on so well at school, too. I don’t want to be like father.’
“‘Quite right,’ I says.
“‘Father is a strikin’ example of unintelligent application,’ he says — he was a rare one for usin’ long words an’ could spell ‘Constantinople’ before he was nine—’he is the unskilled labourer, for whom no real need exists. Here’s father doing nine months for stealing pewter. Another man, scarcely any more intelligent, will one day get two years for converting these pewter pots into spurious coin of the realm, yet another man will probably go to prison for passing the counterfeit coin — it is inevitable.’
“He sighed regretfully.
‘With silver at its present price,’ he went on, ‘there is no need at all why the coins should not be made of silver an’ a handsome profit made. The chances of detection would be reduced to a minimum.’
‘That’s against the law, Albert,’ I says, sternly; ‘It don’t matter whether the coin is made of silver or made of pewter, it’s coinin’.’
“He waved his hand with a lordly air, which looked curious in a boy of his age.
“‘I am not discussin’ the ethical side of the question, he says.
“That conversation made me think a bit. What with his long words an’ his ready tongue, I hadn’t an answer ready for him, an’ I had my misgivings.
“The next thing I heard about him was that he’d gone to a trainin’ college, an’ that he’d passed through that with every kind of honour.
“All this time his father was in an’ out. Three month’ for larceny, six months for robbery from the person, twelve months for felony.
“Then his mother died. ‘Chronic alcoholism’ was the verdict of the coroner’s jury. Albert didn’t go to the funeral, but sent a beautiful wreath with a Latin inscription which, properly translated, meant ‘She was all right accordin’ to her lights, but her lights were pretty bad.’
“One of the masters at the school translated it to me, an’ shook his head.
“I saw Albert again soon after an’ he gave me his views on the subject.
“‘Bein’ my mother was only an accident,’ he said, very serious, ‘she couldn’t help it any more than me. Gen’rally speakin’, I’m glad she’s dead.’
“‘That’s not the way for a boy to speak about his mother, however bad she was,’ I says reprovingly.
“‘I’m speakin’ less as a son than as a philosopher,’ he says very thoughtful, then he added, ‘Father looks very healthy, don’t you think, Mr. Lee?’
“‘Yes,’ I says, for he’d just come out of the ‘College’.
“Albert shook his head.
“‘The short sentence system is wasted on father,’ he says sadly, ‘he’ll last for ages.’
“I never saw Albert again for eight — nine — why, it must have been ten years.
“One day I was on duty in the Kensington Park Road — one summer day it was — when a cab drove up to one of the swaggerest houses an’ out stepped — Albert! He was well-dressed, not showily dressed like one of the ‘nuts’ would have been, but quietly in dark grey, an’ he recognised me instantly.
“‘Hullo, constable!’ he said with a smile, ‘I think we’ve met before?’
“‘Not Albert!’ I says, astonished.
“‘He nodded. ‘You can go on calling me Albert,’ he says easy and affable. ‘I don’t want ‘sir’ from you.’
He told me he lived in the big house, was goin’ to be married, and was makin’ money.
“His father was dead, an’ he’d forgotten about the old Lambeth life.
‘‘It seems a nightmare,’ he says.
“He told me how he’d left school-teaching an’ had gone in for business at printin’ in High Street, Kensington. Started in a small way, an’ worked up until he was employin’ over a hundred workmen.
“He was very enthusiastic about printin’ — it was as much a hobby as anything else with him. I could see his heart was in his work, an’ in my mind I marked him down as bein’ a brand from the burnin’.
“He must have guessed my thoughts.
“‘Honesty’s the best policy, eh, Lee?’ he says, smilin’, ‘especially in the case of the modern thief who endeavours to combat scientific safeguards with a half-digested education from which the very elements of science are absent.’
“I used to meet him occasionally, an’ I got into the habit of touchin’ my hat to him. At Christmas time he sent me a fiver with a little note askin’ me to accept it in the spirit in which it was sent.
“He was very good to the poor, too; gave ’em dinner an’ coal an’ started a soup kitchen down Latimer Road way — in fact people got to look on him as a rich man, an’ Nick Moss an’ a pal of his named ‘Copper’ went down to Kensington Road an’ had a look at the house. Nick told me afterwards there was twenty ways of gettin’ into it.
There was a kitchen window without bars, an’ a conservatory, an’ a billiard room — in fact, it was the easiest crib he’d ever seen.
“So, accordingly, Nick an’ his pal took their swag — nice little centre-bits an’ glass cuttin’ machines, an’ drills — an’ as we say in court ‘effected an entrance’. I happened to be strolling up Kensington Park Road at about 2 a.m. smokin’ a pipe, contrary to all regulations, when passin’ Albert’s house I tried the front gate. It was fastened all right, but as I stepped up to it I trod on something soft. I stooped down an’ picked it up. It was a thin cotton glove — a new one what had never been worn.
“Now I know that all up-to-date burglars carry cotton gloves because of the fear of leavin’ finger prints, an’ a policeman’s mind being naturally a suspicious one, I nipped over the low gate an’ walked quietly up to the house. I’d got my rubber heels on an’ made no noise. I put the light of the lantern over the front door. It was not marked, so I walked round to the servants’ entrance. There was no sign of chisel marks, then I put up my hand to the little window that opens from the pantry. ‘Opens is a good word, for wide open it was.
“Very quietly I got back into the street again. I knew I should find P.C. Sampson at the corner of Kensington Park Square. He came to the ‘point’ to time an’ I called him quietly, an’ together we walked back to the house.
“To cut a long story short we took Nick Moss as he came out of the servants’ entrance, an’ a few minutes afterwards we took his pal. I put the irons on Nick, because he was a dangerous character. Then I left Sampson to guard the two whilst I knocked up Mr. Walker. At the second knock up went a window an’ out came his head.
“Hullo,’ says he, quietly. ‘what do you want?’
“‘Will you come down here for a moment?’ says I.
“‘What do you want?’ he asked again, so in as few words as possible I told him that his house had been broken into, an’ that we had caught the man. He came down, an’ opened the door cautiously. To my surprise he had a revolver in his hand — not an ordinary revolver, but one of these automatic pistols that you sometimes find in the possession of foreign anarchists.
“‘Come in,’ says he, so me an’ Sampson an’ the two prisoners went in, an’ he switched on the light of the dinin’ room.
“It seemed to me that when they met face to face — the man who had been robbed an’ the burglars — there a curious, eager look on Mr. Walker’s face, an’ a sort triumphant smile on the other’s.
Copper, his pal, was an ordinary type of lag, an’ scowled from one to the other of us.
“‘I shall want you to come to the station,’ I says. ‘an’ charge these men.’.
“‘What for?’ says Mr. Walker coolly.
“‘Burglary,’ I says.
“‘There’s some mistake,’ he says, easily. ‘I discovered late last night that I’d lost the key of my safe. It would take days to get the safe opened, so knowing our friend here’ — he waved his hands to Nick—’is by way of being a — er — professional, I sent for him.’
“‘What’s his name?’ I says quickly.
“But Nick Moss was as quick as lighnin’.
“‘Nick Moss is my name,’ he says, pretending the question was addressed to him, an’ Walker took the cue.
“‘Moss, of course,’ he says, ‘everybody knows Nick Moss.’
“Between the two of ’em they were giving each other all the information they desired, an’ I was sorely puzzled to know what to do.
“I didn’t believe the story, but that was nothing to do with the case. Suppose I arrested the two men. A pretty figure I should cut in court when the man who was supposed to have been burgled stood up in the witness box an’ swore that the burglars were friends of his. An’ mind you, it’s no uncommon thing for a merchant to seek out an ex-burglar to open a safe when the combination word has gone wrong, or the keys have been lost. So I was very reluctantly compelled to take the handcuffs off Nick — it was a fishy business, but it wasn’t my business.
“As me an’ my mate turned to go, Albert says: ‘One moment, Constable Lee,’ an’ took me aside.
“‘I hope you won’t report this matter,’ he says, an’ he slipped a banknote into my hand.
“‘Thank you,’ I says, an’ handed it back again. ‘I’ve done nothing that deserves payment; as to reportin’ the matter, you may be sure I shall report it. If I didn’t my mate would, an’ he’s no more to be squared than I am.’
“With that I bid him good night an’ left him sitting there, in his dressin’ gown, talking affably an’ friendly to the two lags.
“When we got outside I looks at Sampson, an’ he looks at me.
“‘Well,’ says he, ‘they’re a bit peas-in-the-pot.’
“‘Meanin’ O.T. hot?’ I says. ‘What do you make it?’
“‘Blessed if I know,’ says Sampson, who’s not what I might call a rapid thinker.
Anyway, I reported the matter to the Station Inspector, an’ he sent one of our smart young men down to make inquiries, but he learnt no more than I had.
“Then I had a little private inquiry on my own. I run across Copper an’ put a few questions to him. He was close, of course, an’ backed up the lie to the best of his ability. All I could get out of him was that after I’d left Walker an’ Nick went into a private room an’ had a bit a talk. He didn’t know what they said, for Nick was an oyster in the way of givin’ information.
“‘So you called at the house by invitation, eh?’ I says.
“‘Yes,’ says Copper.
“‘Then,’ I says, ‘what did you mean by sayin’ when I arrested you “This is a laggin’ stakes”?’
‘Did I?’ he says uneasily.
“‘You did,’ I says. ‘Now, Copper, I don’t care what yarn you spin: you an’ Nick went to that house to crack it, an’ nobody was more surprised than you when the owner spoke up for you.’
“He made no reply.
“‘One of these days,’ I says. ‘you’ll be sorry you was in this business,’ and with that I left him.
“Soon after I saw Nick Moss. Got up to the nines, he was, with a brand new suit an’ a diamond ring, an’ his hat on the side of his head. Yaller gloves an’ patent boots an’ a pearl scarf-pin in his necktie.
“‘What ho, Lee,’ he says insolently. ‘How’s the laggin’ business?’
“‘About the same as usual, Nick,’ I says; ‘lots of crooks inside the bars, but a dashed sight more walkin’ out in shiny boots an’ dog-poisoner gloves.’
“‘You be careful,’ he says, ‘or I’ll report you to your superiors.’
“‘An’ you be careful,’ I says, ‘or I’ll come down on you one of these fine evenin’s when I’m off duty an’ wipe that smile off your dial.’
“He laughed. ‘Any time you are passin’ my house come in an’ have a glass of beer,’ he says patronisingly.
“Just as I was goin’ off duty the next night a motor car came dashin’ up to Nottin’ Hill station, an’ out jumped Chief Inspector Toil from the Yard.
“With him was a foreign looking gentleman, an’ they went into the Inspector’s room, an’ all three was talkin’ together in a low tone when the constable on duty at the door said Atkins and Grant — two plain clothes men — were bringin’ in a prisoner. They carried him in, for he’d collapsed in the last hundred yards, an’ as they laid him on the floor of the charge room I recognised him. It was Nick. I thought at first he was dead, but he was only dead drunk.
“‘Search him, Lee.’ says the Inspector, an’ I put l hands over him. Besides his jewellery he had nearly twenty pounds in gold an’ notes an’ a print, an’ I couldn’t read it, but the moment Toil saw it he snatched it from my hand.
“‘A hundred rouble note — and new!’ he cried.
“‘M’sieur,’ he says to the foreign looking gentleman, ‘what is this?’
“He hands it to the foreigner, an’ he feels it carefully, then walks with it to the light.
“‘This is a forgery,’ he says, ‘like the others!’
“And then it came out that hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of forged Russian notes had been put in circulation, an’ that they had been traced to this district.
“After they had taken Nick Moss away to the cells a light suddenly dawned on me, an’ I went into the Inspector’s room an’ told him all I knew about Albert Walker.
“‘A printer!’ he says thoughtfully, ‘that theory fits very well. You may be sure if he is the man he’d do his printing at home. A burglar breaks into his house an’ discovers his secret, is bribed to keep silence an’—’
“‘He jumped up. ‘We haven’t time to lose,’ he says.
“‘Give me another man, Inspector, an’ the car shall drive us to the house.’
“But we were too late.
‘The house had no tenant when we got there except for an old woman who acted as servant. She told us Nick was a frequent visitor, an’ had called that evenin’ a little the worse for drink.
“‘She heard Nick threatenin’ Walker, but afterwards they must have parted good friends, for Walker rung for wine glasses.
“Her master had left a few minutes after Nick an’ that’s the last she saw of him.
“It was the last anybody else ever saw of him. For though we searched England, we never discovered Mr. Albert Walker. Nick got seven years as an accomplice after an’ Copper got three years for nothin’.
“About five years later a Mr. Sangarro, a very wealthy Spanish gentleman, died an’ left a quarter of a million to found an educational establishment for poor boys of London. A part of his will directed that great attention should be given to teachin’ the Spanish language; ‘a language,’ says the will — I’ve got a copy of it cut from the newspapers somewhere—’which is likely to be of considerable value to the hasty traveller.’
“I discovered who ‘Mr. Sangarro’ was when I got a legacy from his executors in the shape of a little book.
“I recognised it as one I’d once given as a present, although he’d altered the title with an ink mark into ‘A Man of Notes’.”
For Jewey's Laggin'
“People get queer notions about the police,” said P.C. Lee philosophically, “but what people think doesn’t matter very much. There’s a gentleman who lives in Ladbroke Grove — gentleman in the auctioneerin’ line of business — who was once summoned for his rates, an’ has been very bitter since about police methods. He was talkin’ to me the other night about undiscovered crimes.”
“‘There’s a murder here,’ said he, ‘an’ a murder there. an’ the police go walkin’ about with their mouths open catchin’ flies whilst ratepayers are shakin’ in their beds — what’s the remedy for that?’ he said.
“‘Sleep on the floor,’ I said. ‘I put it to you, Mr. Sliggly, that you’re a fairly ‘cute gentleman?’
“‘I am,’ he admitted.
“‘An’ you walk about with your eyes open?’
“‘I do,’ he said, ‘except when I’m walkin’ in me sleep.’
“‘Now,’ I said, ‘how often have you, in the course of your life, seen a man commit a felony — actually seen it, not heard about it or read about it? How often have you seen a man pick a pocket, or smash a jeweller’s window, or comin’ from the scene of a murder?’
“‘Never,’ he said, after a bit.
