P.-C. Lee: Complete Series (ALL 24 Detective Stories in One Volume). Edgar Wallace

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      For Jewey's Laggin'

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      “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.

      “‘An’ very few have,’ said I. ‘You talk about undiscovered crime! Why, the wonder is, in a big city like London or Manchester or Southampton, how so much crime is detected, not how so much remains a mystery. Policemen have only got one pair of eyes, like you, an’ they can only see just as much as you can see. The difference between the average policeman an’ the average citizen is that the constable only believes a quarter of what he is told, an’ the average citizen believes everythin’.

      “An so it is,” continued P.C. Lee. “There was a young feller who used to live in this neighbourhood who was always gettin’ into trouble with the authorities. An’ one day he was taken by a plain clothes man whilst in possession of a number of articles that it didn’t seem natural somehow for him to have. Fancy soaps an’ toothbrushes, an’ things of that description. He was pulled in, as I say, into the local police station an’ charged with ‘unlawful possession’. To everybody’s surprise he proved he’d bought these things at a sale. It came out when the case was before the magistrate, an’ the auctioneer was called to prove his statement — it was this same Mr. Sliggly I was tellin’ you about. Sure enough he had bought the things an’ he was discharged.

      “There would have been the end of it only Sliggly started the idea that this young feller — Tom Coop was his name — was the victim of a police persecution, an’ persuaded Coop to bring an action for false imprisonment. In addition to this one of the evenin’ newspapers got hold of the story an’ started agitatin’ for a Royal Commission.

      “In the thick of it I happened to see Mr. Sliggly. He Stopped me one mornin’, laughin’ an’ rubbin’ his hands.

      “‘Ah, ha!’ said he, ‘I think we’ll give the police a tyin’ up this time! What do you think of your friends now?’ he asked.

      “‘The same as ever,’ I said, ‘they’re few an’ far between.’

      “He went off that night to address a meetin’ in Nottingham, called by the Anti-Police Persecution Association or somethin’ of the sort, an’ the reception he got gave him a bit of a swelled head, because when I saw him on his way back the next mornin’ he only gave me a haughty nod an’ was passin’ on when I stopped him.

      “‘Do you wish to see me, constable?’ he said coldly.

      “‘About Tom Coop,’ said I, but he lifted up his hand.

      “‘Nothin’ you can say,’ said he warningly, ‘can alter my opinion. You have hounded this unfortunate man from pillar to post, you have hounded him from society, an’ hounded him to—’

      “‘What I was goin’ to say, sir,’ said I, ‘is that last night I hounded him into the station, having caught him houndin’ hisself out of your kitchen winder with a bagful of silver.’

      “It dried up Mr. Sliggly in two twinks, an’ next time I saw him was at the Police Fete at the Crystal Palace standin’ drinks to our inspector. It’s very rum how criminal the general public is — they’re always in sympathy with the wrong ‘un, an’ it’s quite usual when I’m takin’ an obstreperous rough to the station to hear some mild old gentleman on the edge of the pavement shout ‘Let the man alone, you brute!’ without his knowin’ anythin’ of the reasons for the man’s arrest.

      “I’ve been reported a dozen times for ill-treating prisoners. Once a feller bit me in the leg as I was takin’ him to the station. It took two of us five minutes to make him lose bold, an’ then he complained to the magistrate that owin’ to our roughness we’d damaged his false teeth!

      “A policeman, bein’ human an’ not bein’ a natural born brute, likes to be as gentle as he can, an’ it’s a prisoner’s own fault if he gets a rough house, an’ the only genuine police persecution I’ve ever heard about was when Sam Golder an’ Harry Trent — two of our young constables — caught Soapy. Soapy was a famous fit-faker — used to fall down suddenly in a crowded street foamin’ at the mouth, an’ when a sympathetic crowd brought him round an’ had subscribed enough money to send him home in a cab, he used to stagger away to another crowded street an’ go through the same performance. We called him Soapy for obvious reasons.

      “One night Sam an’ young Harry, bein’ on plain clothes duty, made it up to follow Soapy. First of all they went to a chemist’s an’ got a quart bottle of stuff made up. I don’t know what the stuff was, but it smelt like bad onions.

      “They came upon Soapy at Notting Hill Gate in the midst of one of the most elegant fits he ever had. Everybody offerin’ advice such as ‘Give the man air’ an’ ‘Bring some brandy’, when Harry elbowed his way into the crowd an’ said he was a medical man. Him an’ Sam forced open Soapy’s mouth.

      “‘Brandy!’ moaned Soapy.

      “‘Have some of this, old feller,’ says Sam, an’ poured about half a pint down Soapy’s throat.

      “For half a second he didn’t get the taste, then he jumped up with a yell an’ ran like the wind.

      “They follered him till he had another fit, an’ the same thing happened all over again.

      “The third time, the moment Soapy heard their voices he got up.

      “‘It’s a fair cop,’ he said. ‘Don’t give me any more of that stuff. I’d sooner do a month.’

      “You can’t СКАЧАТЬ