A MARKED MAN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 111, 7 November 1906, Page 2

A MARKED MAN.

CRIME IN POLAND. INTERESTING TALK WITH A CHIEF DETECTIVE. A STRANGE PARADOX. From the moment that I handled the bomb destined for the chief detective of Warsaw I longed to know that functionary (writes the London Tribune Warsaw correspondent). Threats of vengeance against him were deeper and more sincere than against any official of Poland. The proletariat of the gutter had marked him for their own, and the greasy figure in the frayed gabardine, who huddled the /instrument of .destruction to his bosom, spat as he muttered the hated name of Grun. It was the evening of the bloody fifteenth of August that I received invitation to visit the chief detective at hit. home. The summons was unexpected and flattering in its suggestion of faith in the foreigner, because I knew the Terrorists were ignorant of the exact location of his domicile. Next night, with my guide, I mounted long stairs to a- landing outside a fastclosed door. My companion rapped, and after a minute's delay a gruff voice demanded our names and business. A colloquy ensued, and the information volunteered was conveyed to soms inner room. Five times we were challenged before the door was apened a hand's breadth on tho chain. Through tho aperture we were carefully surveyed, and the intelligence carried inward that we answered the description given. At length we were admitted and conducted to a small working-ropm, whose principal furniture was a. -writing-desk set back from the window so that no stray bullet could reach the writer seated there. FIFTY-NINE DEATH SENTENCES. The chief detective himself was a dapper man, well-groomed and faultlessly attired, good-looking and young. His movements were quick, and his eyes sharp and besn. In French he apologised to me for the elaborate scrutiny to which we had been subjected, adding, " You see I have- received fifty-nine death-war-rants from the Terrorists this, present year, and one must take precautions." Grun was. frank in his criticism of tho situation — a criticism not intended for publication. He readily acknowledged that the majprity of those arrested wero wholly innocent of guilt, and explained that, a.s the soldiery were utterly ignorant of tho forces at work, they busied themselves in arresting for tho most part Jews who wore the long ooat and flat cap of the orthodox. It was outeida their knowledge that those people by religious conviction were altogether at variance with the aims of tho Socialists, and indeed actively opposed to the Ter* rorist propaganda. CRIMINALS GO FREE. The chief detective and his subordinates had nothing to do with the political campaign. His. Criminal Investigation Department was concerned solely with the detection of crime, and that 'branch <» Police work, was practically at a standstill. "The police have more than enough to do in endeavouring to preserve their own lives," he said, "without troubling about the arrest of criminals." His own difficulties in bringing tho guilty to justice wero chiefly the lack of funds. Whereas tho political agonte had practically^ unlimited command of money, the Criminal Investigation Department was allowed a beggarly sum of eight thousand roubles a. year, doled out in contributions of three hundred roubles at a time, to b& expended in tho detection of crime. "Tlie members of my lowest grade of deteotives," he remarked, "receive fifteen roubles a month — s\ cum on which a man cannot live in Warsaw — and so it is not to be wondered at that they turn to the criminal classes for blackmail to keep body and soul together." ' Being more interested, for the moment, in political than in social crime, I asked him how it was that such a simple matter na the scene of the printing and publishing of the "Robatnik" and the various Terrorist placards remained an impenetrable secret. He laughed. "Oh, we know perfectly well where they are produced. In fact, all the printing is done in perfectly legitimate premises, but the political agents dare not arrest the compositors, and we criminal detectives will not. It is none of our business." The chief detective's remedy for the situation w«s to withdraw ' the 6oMiers from the city, to organise the police upon a. modem, properly-remunerated basis, and to hand over the control of affairs to the civil authorities. "Law and order must be enforced," he averred, "but law and- order cannot be enforced by an ignorant soldiery that is incapable of appreciating the distinction between vengeance and Justice. '' It seemed to me he spoke more sense than I had heard or read for long, but I had not oom» to Mr. Grun for philosophy. KNIFE AND REVOLVER. I asked him about the methods and the /weupoua ol tlie Terrorists,, He loft thg

room for a moment, and returned withi two knives. One was a grooved, flatbladed daggeT with a fluted handle of bone. "I pulled that out of the heart of a sergeant of police," he said. "It's a common pattern here, although the fine, bayonet-shaped Italian stiletto- is als» a favourite." As I played with the knife, I held it, ss^the Spaniards do, point upward. The chief detective took it from me. "No, that's not the way the Warsaw murderer acts. Be holds it so," clutching the dagger in tho manner of the old-time Adelphi villain. "The Terrorist carries the knife in his coat, brushes quickly past his victim, and when he is abreast drives it suddenly downward into, the man' 6 heart. He does not stop, but goea on as though perfectly unconnected witb the deed. The stricken, man sways io*i a moment and < then falls, generally wholly unaware of the identity of thei Land that struck him. Indeed the assailant frequently turns back and himself catches the victim in his arms and acts the sympathetic passer-by." Grun handed me another weapon—* Swedish jack-knife with "Made in England" engraved upon the blade. "That one they stuck into my ribs," he casually remarked, and turned to the consideration of a Smith and Wesson 38. -calibre servicepattern revolver. Being my favourite "gun," I said a word in its piaise, but the chief detective interposed : "No, that'sno use in our work. Trie Browning pistol i 6 the only weapon. It's like a hypodermic syringe, and pumps its half, dozen bullets into a man in the very instant of his falling. By the way," he added, "if ever you do use a Smith-Wes-son don't hold it this way, with the sights on top, but sideways. . It' 6 ever so much more Buie." I asked4um if he trusted to the Browning for his own preservation. He shook his head. "No ; I trust to an Anarchist." I laughed at what I took to be a joke, but he continued serious. "You must not confound our Warsaw. Anarchists," he explained, "with the men who murdered King Humbert of Italy and the Empress of Austro-Hungary. We have a different breed heie. Out Anarchists resemble your Hooligans. They are young, banded together in gangs, and, bound by solemn oaths to one another. No man can become an Anarchist until he has given proof of the commission of at least two outrages against society.. After his admission he is protected to the uttermost by the whole power of the fiateTnity. "Some time ago a murder was committed here, in Warsaw, and we captured the murderer— an Anarchist. Fob reasons of out own we didn't desire to proceed against him, go I took him as my personal servant. Wherever I go ha accompanies me. He is answerable for my life, and but for him I should have been assassinated, long ago. Would you care to see him!" I intimated to him that I should. "Lutig!" called my host. A moment later a youth of about eighteen entered, quiet, well-dressed, intelligent. He stood! deferential and quiet while his master addressed some words to him, and then withdrew, silent as he had entered. The chief detective turned to me — "That's my protector — a Warsaw) Anarchist !" , As I made ny way down the twisting stairs I cogitated upon that etrang* paradox of a land where the criminals found their protection in the police and the chief detective entrusted his life to a convicted murderer, ' the member of »n association of assassins.