"WANTED" BY THE POLICE.
On the previous night the police superintendent at ---- had treated
me with a courtesy which was almost deferential; and had himself
accompanied me to my cab to say:
"Good-night, sir, and I hope you'll be none the worse for your wetting."
Witnessing my rather ceremonious "send off," the very young and perhaps
recently-enlisted member of the force, on duty in the outer office,
had evidently been duly impressed with the fact that I was a person of
some weight. On my presenting myself at the station next morning, he
greeted me with a smile of obsequious respect, and without waiting to
report my call to the superintendent, conducted me importantly, and
with a great air of knowing when and to whom to accord honour, straight
into the august presence of his chief. The somewhat officious air with
which he announced "Mr. Rissler, sir," was speedily changed into a
look of blank and crest-fallen surprise, for instead of receiving me as
a favoured caller, the superintendent--who, as we entered, had his ear
glued to the telephone--jumped up in a passion, and shouted:
"How dare you show this person, or any person, into my room without
permission?"
Looking at me viciously, as at one who had been guilty of the crime of
obtaining a respectful reception under false pretences, the unfortunate
constable stammered out:
"Very sorry, sir; but thought that the gentlem--person--was a friend
of yours." And, saluting with a proper air of chastened humility, he
withdrew.
Scarcely had the door closed behind him before the telephone bell
clashed its discordant jangling at the superintendent's very ear,
jarring the nerves of both of us, and causing him almost to jump in his
shoes.
Then I "tumbled" to the situation. If I was not very much mistaken,
he had been in communication with Scotland Yard at the moment of my
entrance, the subject of the conference being none other than my
humble self; and, judging by the marked difference in my reception,
and by the way in which, with one ear stooped to the telephone, he was
glaring at me with both eyes, his last night's reception of myself and
his communicativeness had not come in for his chief's commendation.
That he had been receiving something of a jacketing his first few words
told.
"Are you there? Oh, it's you, sir, again--is it? Yes, sir, I did hear
what you said just now, and am very sorry. What do you say? No, sir, I
didn't leave the telephone before you had done speaking. I shouldn't
think of doing such a thing, but somebody came into my room and
interrupted me. Will you excuse me a second, sir, while I turn them
out? Then I think I can explain why I acted as I did."
Without taking his ear from the telephone, and without saying a word,
he pointed me peremptorily to the door, seeing which, I of course
instantly withdrew to the outer office, where I was surveyed with
supercilious scorn by the youthful constable, who a few minutes before
had so deferentially ushered me into the superintendent's room. Turning
my back contemptuously upon him, I studied a board upon which were
displayed the portraits of certain characters "wanted" by the police.
The young constable, who apparently attributed his downfall from
official favour to a malicious and deeply-laid plot on my part, sought,
in vulgar parlance, "to get back a bit of his own" by affecting to find
a resemblance between some of the "wanteds" and myself, examining first
their faces, and then my features, with an interest which I could not
but consider offensive.
Obviously the only card left for me to play was to appear unconscious
of the comparison which he was instituting, and while I was doing this
to the best of what I fear was a poor ability, the door opened, and the
superintendent came out.
"You want to see me, Mr.--er--Rissler, isn't it?" he inquired rudely.
"What is it? I've no time to spare this morning."
"I won't keep you long," I said. "But you were good enough to say last
night that you would send some of your men to inspect the opium den,
and I called in to hear what happened, and to ask whether Parker's body
had been found."
"You called to hear what had happened, and to ask this, and to ask
that!" he said insolently. "Since when have you been appointed to the
head office in New Scotland Yard, that you come here to cross-examine
me on my own business? Pretty fine pass the force is coming to,
if we're to take every Tom, Dick, and Harry into our confidence.
I've nothing to tell you, sir, except to advise you to confine your
attention to your own business, and leave other people to attend to
their own. Good morning."
Turning on his heel he walked into his room again, slamming the door
behind him; so, affecting not to see the insolent grin on the face
of my friend the youthful constable, who had been present during my
snubbing, I put my hat on my head and stepped into the street.
"But I'll find out the result of the raiding of the den yet," I said
to myself. "The superintendent here, and his men, were friendly enough
to me last night, and I strongly suspect that the orders to tell me
nothing have only just arrived from New Scotland Yard. If I can find
the policeman within whose beat the den is, it is possible that he has
not yet received instructions that I'm to be kept in the dark, and that
half-a-crown may open his mouth. Anyhow, it can do no harm to have a
try."
Nor was I wrong in my conjecture. The policeman--when I found him,
which I did with little difficulty--was friendly and communicative.
"Oh, you're the gent, are you, sir, who laid the information about
the opium den? I wasn't at the station when you called, but I came in
directly after, and heard the superintendent talking about it. He'd
be glad to see you, I think, sir, if you was to look in. Oh, yes; he
sent five men round to the place at once. But, Lord, sir, the rascals
had got wind of it, and when our men got there, the birds had flown.
Cleared out--that's what they had, every man Jack of them. There was
the broken window, just as you said, and there was the marks on the
door, a-showin' as somebody had tried to break it in, or to batter it
down, but them as had been there had all cleared out, and they'd taken
the chemicals and tools and other things, what you saw there with 'em.
The chief he's trying to track the rascals down, and to find where
they've moved to, for they must have put them things somewhere. It
stands to reason they can't walk about with them in the street. But
though he clapped two of our best men on the job, they hadn't found
anything when I came out on beat."
"And Parker's body?" I inquired. "Has it been found?"
"Not as I've heard on, sir. But holloa, what's this?"
The constable and I had been strolling on together while talking, and
on turning the corner of a small and evil-smelling street we saw a knot
of people gathered outside a sweet shop.
"Now, then! What's all this? Stand aside there, will you?" he
commanded, shouldering the crowd aside.
At the door a wretched hag, her lank grey hair falling in dishevelled
wisps upon her shoulders, and the pores of her face so choked with dirt
that the grime lay in lines along the wrinkles, was clawing at the
air with one skinny hand and arm, alternately sobbing and screaming
hysterically.
"Come, come, my good woman!" said the constable sharply. "Stop that
noise, and tell me what it's all about."
Shaking her head, as if to convey that she was powerless to speak, the
wretched creature clutched wildly at the door lintel, and then fell in
a swoon almost at his feet.
"Who is the woman? And what's the trouble?" inquired the constable of
the bystanders. "Do any of you know her?"
"Macintyre's her name," volunteered a respectable looking woman in
the crowd. "She keeps the sweet shop inside, and lets her rooms as
lodgings. I never heard anything against her. But I don't know what's
the matter. She'd only just come out into the street before you came."
"She lives here, does she?" inquired the constable. "Stand aside there,
and I'll have a look inside and see if anything's wrong."
Then a small voice, that sounded quite near to the pavement, shrilled
from the spot where the crowd pressed thickest.
It came from a wee, wizened girl-child, who looked as if she might be
ten and talked with the precision and self-possession of twenty--so
pitifully sharpened do the wits of the children of the streets become
in the struggle for existence.
"It's my Granny--that's who it is. She's got a lodger in the back room,
Black Sam. Somebody gave him two shillings yesterday, and he came home
drunk last night, quite early, and went to bed. I know he was drunk,
for two gentlemen came to see him about ten, but Granny told them he
was in bed, and drunk, in the back room, and they couldn't see him till
this morning. I heard a funny noise in his room in the night. It woke
me up. It sounded like someone trying to scream, and not being able to;
and I thought I heard people moving about. So I woke Granny up and told
her so, but she was cross with me for waking her, and said it was only
his drunken snoring I'd heard. But just now, as Black Sam didn't get
up, Granny and I went into his room. The window was wide open, and Sam
was lying on the floor all over blood. And please, sir, there's a big
hole in his throat, and he's quite cold, and I think he's dead."
"Black Sam!" Surely I had heard that name before? Why, yes, and no
longer ago than on the preceding evening. When the leader of the gang
in the opium den had asked me who it was that directed me there, I had
replied, "A negro match-seller, whom I saw outside Poplar station." His
comment had been "Ah! a negro match-seller--and outside Poplar station.
I think I know the fellow. We must look into this!"
Then his confederates had whispered together, the only words that I had
overheard being the dead man's name, "Black Sam." Two of the gang had
then left the house, as if on some errand. That was, I remembered--for
the clock struck soon after--just before ten. It was at ten that two
men had called to see the negro. They had been told that he had come
home drunk, and was lying in the back room asleep. Was it they who had
entered that room by the window in the dead of the night and murdered
him?