A POLICEMAN’S LIFE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 2 March 1929, Page 9

A POLICEMAN’S LIFE

IS DULL. SAYS EDGAR WALLACE

A POLICEMAN'S life writes Mr Edgar Wallace, is in the main, a very dull one. AH the interesting work is in the hands of the C.1.D., and the chance of a constable iiguring in a big case is as remote as his drawing a lottery prize. Two o’clock in the morning, and a noiseless figure > strolling through a quiet London square. Here is a window open at the bottom. He doesn’t remember having seen that before. lie goes up the steps and knocks thunderously on the door. Presently an upstairs window squeaks and a quavering- voice demands explanation. “Your window is open.” Presently the householder, in dress-ing-gown and pyjamas, opens the door and admits the policeman. He doesn’t know -why the window is open. The constable turns on the lights and examines the room. (Maybe he will continue his investigations into the kitchen. Then a servant, drawn from her slumbers, remembers that she opened the window just before she went to bed and forgot to close it.

Luck is with him to-night. At four o’clock he sees a brisk little man entrying a workman’s basket who bids him a bright “Good morning” as he passes. “Good morriing,” says the constable politely. Observation and experience tell him that that kind of basket is carried by a certain type of man. F-or instance, carpenters are an autocratic race that do not go to work at four o’clock in the morning. A sewer man clumping along in thick boots and carrying a sack he would let pass. But a* shabby little man with a carpenter’s bag. . . . “Here! Come back!” The little man turns reluctantly. “What have you got in that bag, governor? ’’ “Tools—l got a job to do down in Kent—”

“Let’s have a look.” The little man can either stand on his dignity or drop the bag and run.

If he is wise he takes a middle course. “It’s a cop,” he says fatalistically. The bag has a number of brass taps and portions of lead piping lifted from an empty house. Net value about twelve shillings. 'Small thieves make this sort of thing pay. Sometimes they have quite a good haul, and one man once got away with a hundred pounds ’ worth of silver wall brackets. There is little risk, for no family is in residence, and tnerc is no caretaker to keep the thief at bay. A red-letter night this for a uniformed policeman. One hand clasped affectionately about th e burglar’s arm, the other carrying the bag, they walk itp to the police station. I was with a policeman in the Edgeware Road one night when a woman approached him. “Excuse me, young man (a favourite method of address), but could you tell me the rights of this? My poor dear mother died last month, and my brother says the furniture’s his, though I’m older than him. And his wife’s come round to take the sofa from my house ’ ’

The policeman know nothing about the laws of succession, but he knew that not even the rightful heir can pineli sofas. He walked round the corner and interviewed the brother.

“If you think it’s yours, go to the courts. You can’t go taking people’s sofas out of their houses. How do I know it’s yours?” He had the rough law of it. But tlion he lias the rough law of everything. He knows what to do in all sorts of embarrassing circumstances. He is a frequent visitor to hospitals and mortuaries, and recognises a homeless dog a hundred yards away. The child who is “lost” in the street gravitates toward him naturally. He appears as by magic -whenever a crowd gathers, and he can handle the ugliest of these with perfect good humour, giving banter for banter. He never loses his temper; he’ll go out of his way to inform the wife of a prisoner that her husband is inside and wants a bit of breakfast.