SCOTLAND YARD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 58, 10 March 1937, Page 4

SCOTLAND YARD

BEATING CRIMINALS

THEIR FIXED HABITS

To a Scotland Yard man the letters "M.0." have nothing to do with medical officers, writes Webster Evans in "John o' London's Weekly." "M.0." —so Mr. Edwin T. Woodhall, a former Yard man, tells us in "Secrets of Scotland Yard" —is short for the "Modus Operandi" system. This is based on the fact that habitual criminals are usually creatures of habit:—"The professional crook has his own individual characteristic methods. Thus, some men work only in daylight, others are night operators; some take to 'catburglary' and always climb to roofs and high windows to make their entry. One man we caught would only enter a house by way of an adjacent empty house and via one of the upper windows. Another burglar always used a ladder. To give an example of the criminal's little peculiarities, Mr. Woodhall mentions the case of a man who, if his haul failed to come up to expectations, had the habit of pouring water into pianos or scattering salt, sugar, flour, or anything else he could find on the floor! These peculiarities of known criminals, says Mr. Woodhall, "are divided and subdivided, and entered on cards with cross-references. Each type of offence is designated by a number; following this is another number indicating a subdivision of the offence. Thus: No. 6 may mean obtaining money by a certain kind of trick. No. 6 —l may mean obtaining money by the same trick, but with a slight variation in his story. A burglar with a sense of humour was known to the Yard as "The Reverend Harry." His "M.0." was to disguise himself as a parson, in a long black coat and wide-brimmed black felt hat. And he used to leave messages behind! "One day news came to the C.1.D.: 'The Reverend Harry's out again!" A certain rich man in the South of London had arrived at his home on a Sunday night after attending a church service with his wife and family--—to find his safe broken open, his money and silver gone, and a bit of cardboard swinging from the safe-door handle by a dirty piece of

string. On the card were the words: 'You pray! But I watch and prey!'" AMUSING ARRESTS. The Divisional Superintendent merely said, "Harry's out —get him" And they got him. Harry was seventy-eight the last time they arrested him. There have been some amusing arrests in the annals of Scotland Yard. Inspector Gooch and his men once shadowed a gang of pick-pockets throughout the whole of one day. The climax came when the gang boarded a bus en masse. Like a flash Inspector Gooch manoeuvred his Squad car alongside, and his men jumped out of the car on to the motor-bus. Gooch calmly gave the bus-driver instructions to proceed to the nearest police station, where the outwitted gang were charged. The notorious Jabez Balfour was involved in a curious incident. He fled to a South American State which had no extradition treaty with this country, and in spite of diplomatic overtures, the officials refused to hand him over to our custody. Finally, Superintendent Froest was sent out to see what he could do. After spying out the land, he chartered a special train, had it waiting with "steam up"—and then seized Balfour. The absconding company promoter was unceremoniously bundled into the carriage by Froest, and at a signal the train moved off just as the Sheriff dashed into the station with his warrant for the release of Balfour. The engine drivers, however, took no notice, for Froest had squared them,- and with increasing momentum they moved out of the station. Froest took his man aboard a British vessel; and although' the South American authorities came alongside in a cutter and demanded his release, Balfour was brought safely to England. I A FAMOUS YARD MAN. Another astute and famous Yard man was Chief Inspector Arrow —excellent name! He once dealt with the theft of a watch that had belonged to Nelson. After months of hard work he arrested a suspect. But in spite of every effort —ripping out the linings of the prisoner's clothes and even raking up the chimneys of his house —he- could find no trace of the watch. At last a friend of the thief mentioned the fact that he was a musician. "What instrument did he play?" asked Arrow. "The concertina," was the reply. "Where is that concertina?" Arrow was eager to know. "Here, he hasn't played it for quite some time." "No wonder he didn't play it," said Arrow,

grimly, as he shook the concertina and heard a muffled noise inside. "He couldn't play it—the watch is inside!" And so it proved. The trouble is. that criminals can be clever, too. In the "Black Museum" at Scotland Yard, says Mr. Woodhall, is a jeweller's wicker basket. A very small man squeezed himself into it and was left by a confederate in a railway cloakroom. During the night he got out of his own empty basket, transferred his label number to a jeweller's basket, and let himself out of the cloak-room at the dead of night. Early next morning ha presented his ticket, the number corresponding to the one on the jeweller's basket, and walked away with ten thousand pounds' \vbrth of jewellery! Every year, however, new weapons are being forged against the criminal. A wonderful machine called the Epidiascope, worked by ultra-violet rays, brings out details hidden from tha sight of the eye. It was used to good effect in the Charing Cross Trunk Murder case. A bloodstained duster was put under this apparatus which can project an enlarged reproduction either of a photograph or of the clue itself on to a screen. The image revealed a mark, previously indistinguishable, ■ that brought the mystery one step nearer a solution; as also in the Southampton Garage Murder and the No. 1 Brighton Trunk Crime. . . Another ingenious instrument is the Tintometer. It matches and records colours. It was first used in the Brinkley poisoning case.; With it the experts wore able to show that a will hsd been written and signed in'one ink, witnessed by a certain.. man .in another, and b,y Parker, the murderer, in a third, which corresponded to that used in the public-house where: Parker said he had signed a, petition for an outing. . - . ..'. . :'. Before long, too, says Mr. Woodhall, the pocket radio telephone "will be as much a part of a policeman as his truncheon." Wireless, of course, is already widely used by the Flying Squad. How different from the days when such a Flying Squad as there was did its flying by bicycle or hansom cab! Mr. Woodhall tells us all about those early days in his story of the evolution of Scotland Yard.' All Londoners should know how this great organisation arose and how it works — detective thrillers are not always ac^ curate. It is a pleasantly ironical thought, by the way, to remember that 2500 tons of granite for building the present home of our police was quarried by convicts at Dartmoor.- •