A Policeman’s Life is Dull, Says Edgar Wallace

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 538, 15 December 1928, Page 26

A Policeman’s Life is Dull, Says Edgar Wallace

• - » ,1. . POLICEMAN’S life writes Mr. Edgar Wallace) is in the main, a very dull One. ttie lnterest ing yTrjfll-jKn work is in the hands of m the C.1.D., and the chance of a constable figuring in a big case is as remote as his drawing a lottery prize. Generally speaking, he gets more kicks than ha’pence. “I had a cat-burglar on my beat a month ago,” said an officer to me, “and naturally everybody wanted to know where I was. A oat-burglar always works with a pal, and, a policeman being as conspicuous as Big Ben, it’s not hard for the look-out to see him coming.

“If I had my way I'd have half the police force doing night duty in plain clothes. In the old days it was necessary to have men about in uniform so that people who wanted to find a policeman could see him, but nowadays, when almost every house has got a telephone, it is a simple matter to bring an officer to the spot, pesides, if you’re in plain clothes it is pretty easy to detect anybody who is looking for a policeman. they go sort of wild.”

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. He goes up the steps and knocks thunderously on the door. Presently an upstairs window squeaks and a quavering voice demands explanation.

“Your window is oj>en.” 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. If the householder is a nice man he slips hal£-a-crown into the hand of the constable. He is not allowed to accept tips, but, not being a super-man, he takes it. I should. Luck is with him to-night. At four o’clock he sees a brisk little man

carrying a workman’s basket who bids him’ a bright “Good-morning” as he passes. “Good-morning,” says the constable politely. Observation and experience tell him that that kind of basket is carried by j a certain type of man. For 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 hag. . . . “Here! Come back!" The little man turns reluctantly. "What have you got in that bag. governor?” “Tools —I 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 oi 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 there is no caretaker to keep the thief at bay. A red-letter night this for a uniformed policeman. One hand clasped affectionately about the burglar’s arm, the other carrying the bag, they walk j up to the police station. ! “I on duty in Wigmore Street when I saw this man carrying a bag. I asked him what it contained, and he replied: ‘lt’s a cop.’ I then took him into custody." 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 ime the rights of this? jVly 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 knew nothing about the laws of succession, but he knew that not even the rightful heir can pinch 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 X know it’s yours?” He had the rough law of it. But then he has the rough law cw 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 gc out of his way to inform the wife of a prisoner that her husband is inside and wants a bit of breakfast. Never, in all the chequered history of Scotland Yard, has the police force of the Metropolis been so efficient as it is to-day, or held a better type of man.