The Long Arm of the Law
Classic Police Stories
Edited and Introduced
by Martin Edwards
Poisoned Pen Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2017
Introduction and notes copyright © 2017 Martin Edwards
Published by Poisoned Pen Press in association with the British Library
ISBN: 9781464209079Ebook
‘After the Event’ by Christianna Brand (copyright © Christianna Brand) reprinted by permission of A M Heath & Co. Ltd. Authors’ Agents. ‘The Chief Witness’ by John Creasey reprinted by permission of Peters Fraser & Dunlop (www.petersfraserdunlop.com) on behalf of the Estate of John Creasey. ‘Fingerprints’ by Freeman Wills Crofts reprinted by permission of the Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts. ‘The Case of Jacob Heylyn’ by Leonard Gribble reprinted by permission of Peters Fraser & Dunlop (www.petersfraserdunlop.com) on behalf of the Estate of Leonard Gribble. ‘Old Mr Martin’ by Michael Gilbert reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Beneficiaries of the Literary Estate of Michael Gilbert. © Michael Gilbert, 1959. ‘Remember to Ring Twice’ by E.C.R. Lorac © 1950 Estate of E.C.R. Lorac. ‘Sometimes the Blind’ reprinted by permission of Peters Fraser & Dunlop (www.petersfraserdunlop.com) on behalf of the Estate of Nicholas Blake. ‘The Cleverest Clue’ by Laurence W. Meynell published in Windsor magazine reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates. ‘The Moorlanders’ by Gil North reprinted by permission of Gil North Limited. ‘The Undoing of Mr Dawes’ by Gerald Verner reprinted by permission of Cosmos Literary Agency.
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The historical characters and events portrayed in this book are inventions of the author or used fictitiously.
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Contents
The Long Arm of the Law
Copyright
Contents
Introduction
The Mystery of Chenholt
The Silence of PC Hirley
The Mystery of a Midsummer Night
The Cleverest Clue
The Undoing of Mr Dawes
The Man Who Married Too Often
The Case of Jacob Heylyn
Fingerprints
Remember to Ring Twice
Cotton Wool and Cutlets
After the Event
Sometimes the Blind…
The Chief Witness
Old Mr Martin
The Moorlanders
More from this Author
Contact Us
Introduction
Classic crime fiction is often associated with the brilliant amateur detective—those unlikely but unforgettable sleuths Lord Peter Wimsey and Miss Marple spring to mind. Yet many notable detectives of yesteryear sprang from the ranks of the official police. Charles Dickens’ Inspector Bucket and Wilkie Collins’ Sergeant Cuff are famous examples from the Victorian era. The Long Arm of the Law celebrates their successors, a few of them illustrious, many obscure.
The formation of the Detective Department (with a staff of eight) at Scotland Yard in 1842 marked the establishment of the official police force in Britain; it replaced the Bow Street Runners, who were in effect private operatives. In his influential history of crime fiction Bloody Murder (1972), Julian Symons argued that “it is impossible to understand the romantic aura which spread around detective departments and bureaus without realising the thankfulness felt by the middle class at their existence. As they grew, the strand in crime writing represented by Godwin, Lytton and Balzac, in which the criminal was often considered romantic and the policeman stupid or corrupt, almost disappeared.”
Dickens admired the Detective Department, and Bucket—who appears in Bleak House (1853)—shares some characteristics with a real life policeman, Inspector Field. Similarly, Cuff—a character in The Moonstone (1868)—was based on Inspector Jonathan Whicher, whose most famous investigation was the Road Hill House murder case of 1860. Although his suspicion that the 16 year old Constance Kent had murdered her young half-brother exposed him to criticism, his suspicions were vindicated when Constance finally confessed to the crime.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, who first appeared in 1887, was a private consulting detective whose genius contrasted with the unimaginative approach of Inspector Lestrade and other policemen. Holmes’ immense popularity led to much flattery by imitation, and soon The Strand and other magazines were awash with gifted enquiry agents and sundry amateurs who flaunted their deductive talents at the expense of bumbling representatives of Scotland Yard. An example is Dorcas Dene, an actress with a talent for impersonation who appeared in a couple of commercial successful collections of stories by George R. Sims towards the end of the nineteenth century.
But the success of Holmes and his rivals has obscured the fact that stories focusing on police detective work continued to be written, and in 1911, Sims himself contributed a series of stories to The Sketch magazine featuring Detective Inspector Chance. In a foreword, he emphasised the contrast between Chance and the brilliant amateur: “Without claiming the marvellous powers of deduction possessed by Sherlock Holmes, or the innocence of Father Brown, Detective Inspector Chance has rendered substantial service to the cause of criminal investigation.” No doubt in the hope of conveying an impression of authenticity, Sims used real life cases as source material for his fictions; in the story included in this book, the Road Hill House case provides the template. But the response to the tales about Chance did not match the enthusiasm shown for the Dorcas Dene stories, and the tales were not gathered together until 1974, and then only in a private publication limited to 200 copies.
Three years before Sims published the Chance stories, Alice and Claude Askew produced a collection chronicling the rapid rise through the ranks of an Oxford-educated copper called Vane, but the first police detective novel to enjoy widespread success was written by an insider. Shortly after his retirement Frank Froest, formerly a high profile Scotland Yard Superintendent dubbed “the man with iron hands”, published The Grell Mystery (1913) to widespread acclaim; the novel became a silent movie in 1917.
Following the First World War, the era retrospectively called the Golden Age of Detective Fiction saw the emergence of writers such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Anthony Berkeley specialising in the ingenious whodunit. Their detectives were apt to be cerebral amateurs in the Holmes mould, and their success tended to overshadow the work of contemporaries who wrote about professional police officers, men who made up for their lack of eccentric personality traits with meticulous investigative methods.
The most influential writer of this kind of story was Freeman Wills Crofts, whose first novel, The Cask (1920), made a more immediate impact on the reading public than Christie’s debut, published in the same year. In his fifth book, Crofts introduced Inspector Joseph French, who went on to enjoy a long and successful career. Crofts took immense pains with the construction of his elaborate plots, but when he felt the urge to experiment, he featured French in a handful of “inverted” mysteries; they began by showing a murderer execute a seemingly
foolproof crime, before French was introduced with a view to exposing the fatal flaw in the homicidal scheme.
Crofts’ followers included G.D.H. and Margaret Cole, John Bude, E.C.R. Lorac, and Henry Wade. Wade soon succumbed to the urge to vary his approach, and several of his novels about the Oxford graduate Inspector John Poole, notably Mist on the Saltings (1933) and Lonely Magdalen (1940), were ambitious and refreshingly different. Poole’s occasional fallibility made him seem all the more human and credible as a character, while Wade’s willingness to touch on the sensitive issues of police brutality and corruption was one of the elements in his work that set it apart.
Wade’s understanding of the realities of police work benefited from the public offices he held; among other things, he served as a magistrate and as the High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire. Sir Basil Thomson had even greater insight into the everyday business of detection, given that he had been an Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police prior to writing eight short and snappy books about a detective called Richardson, who rises from the rank of constable to Chief Constable in the space of seven novels published in the short span of four years. The Richardson books supplied lively light entertainment, but Wade was a novelist of greater accomplishment.
The establishment of the Hendon Police College in 1934 reflected the authorities’ desire to recruit more graduates to senior roles in the police, and this development—controversial in its day—was reflected in the detective fiction of the time. Gentlemanly cops such as Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn and Michael Innes’ John Appleby achieved sustained popularity with readers. In Hendon’s First Case (1935), John Rhode showed a Cambridge-educated Hendon man working alongside both a senior career cop of the old school and a cerebral detective in the Holmesian tradition, the grumpy but formidably bright Dr Priestley.
The years following the Second World War saw increasing interest in the “police procedural novel”, as crime writers strove to supply realistic portrayals of teams of police at work. Foremost among them in Britain were Maurice Procter, an experienced policeman whose fiction became so successful that he was able to resign in order to write full-time, and the famously prolific John Creasey. Under the pen-name J.J. Marric, Creasey produced twenty-six novels about Commander George Gideon, as well as a handful of short stories. Michael Gilbert, who was as versatile as Creasey and a smoothly accomplished storyteller created a seemingly endless series of interesting and crisply characterised police detectives, while Gil North enjoyed considerable success in the Sixties with his stories about the Yorkshire cop Sergeant Cluff. North, like Alan Hunter and W.J. Burley, creators of George Gently and Charles Wycliffe respectively, drew inspiration from across the Channel, and Georges Simenon’s enduringly successful Maigret series.
In the mid-Seventies, Colin Dexter introduced Inspector Morse, a police officer who was in many ways a throwback to the days of the brilliant “thinking machine” detectives of the Golden Age. The Morse novels are superb stories, as are Ruth Rendell’s books about Chief Inspector Wexford and P.D. James’ featuring Adam Dalgliesh. Dexter, Rendell, and James were much less interested in the minutiae of police procedure than various other crime writers of recent years, such as Lynda La Plante, who have striven for authenticity in matters of detail. The police story has always encompassed a wide range of crime writing, as this collection illustrates.
My thanks go to three experts on the subject of classic crime fiction, John Cooper, Nigel Moss, and Jamie Sturgeon. Their help with my researches, and their suggestions about possible stories for inclusion, proved invaluable. I am also grateful to Chris Verner and Philip Harbottle, for drawing my attention to the Gerald Verner story included in this book, and—as ever—to Rob Davies and his team at the British Library for their efficiency and enthusiastic support.
Martin Edwards
www.martinedwardsbooks.com
The Mystery of Chenholt
Alice and Claude Askew
Alice and Claude Askew formed a writing partnership that proved highly productive before it was tragically cut short. Alice (1874–1917) and Claude (1865–1917) were married in 1900; their first co-authored novel, The Shulamite, appeared four years later and was subsequently adapted both for stage and film. Once they hit their stride as writers, there was no stopping them, and they are said to have written over ninety novels and serials. During the First World War, they worked as special correspondents for the Daily Express, and also helped with relief efforts in Serbia. In October 1917, they were travelling on an Italian steamer when it was torpedoed by a German submarine. The couple drowned, and Claude’s body was never recovered.
This story is taken from The Adventures of Police Constable Vane M.A., on Duty and off, which was published in 1908 with a sub-title: “recounting the startling incidents in the career of a gentleman of birth and education who joined the London Police”. The Askews’ emphasis in a prefatory note on the fact that some officers in the Metropolitan Police “have had University training” indicates that this would have come as a surprise to some readers, a generation before the emergence of Oxbridge-educated police officers such as Henry Wade’s John Poole and E.R. Punshon’s Bobby Owen. The stories are quaint, the book exceedingly rare: even the British Library does not have a copy.
***
It was many weeks after his terrible night in the “mummy house” that Reggie, still feeble from his illness, his broad shoulders a little bent and rounded, was able to resume his duties. It was evident that he was unfit for active work, that change of air and scene was necessary for him, so the police authorities decided to transfer him temporarily to the country. I think I have made it clear that Reggie was a favourite both with his superiors and his subordinates, all of whom showed real sympathy for him during his illness.
Well, Reggie was given charge of the police-station of a small Surrey town, the name of which it is not necessary to mention. It is sufficient to say that it stood on high ground, and in the neighbourhood of the fragrant pine woods. Under these cheerful auspices, his health improved wonderfully; he soon held himself erect once more, and resumed the favoured cigar, a habit which he had not indulged since his convalescence. I had missed that long cigar during his visits to me at this period; Reggie was not the same man without it.
He soon became as popular at X— as he was in London. In so small a town it may easily be imagined that his duties were not very exciting; there were no thrilling adventures to report to me—luckily, considering all he had gone through. One experience, however, is worth recording, though, as a matter of fact, it concerned Violet Grey almost more than her fiancé.
Reggie’s one trouble in his new position was that he saw so little of Violet, so he was naturally delighted when an opportunity presented itself of summoning her in her professional capacity to his neighbourhood. This is how it happened.
Reggie was requested one day to see a gentleman at the police-station on a private matter. There was a good deal of mystery about the letter which requested an appointment; it stated that the writer would call at a certain hour on a matter of vital importance, but gave no name or address. Reggie examined the letter with curiosity; he did not like anonymous epistles, and he had had some experience of “cranks.”
The handwriting, too, seemed a trifle shaky. “Statements to be received with caution,” was Reggie’s decision as to the manner in which he should treat his intending visitor.
When, in due course, the stranger put in an appearance, my cautious friend was more favourably impressed. The ill-written letter was accounted for by an admitted lack of education, an admission made with peculiar frankness. Frankness, indeed, appeared to be the chief characteristic of Mr Grimsby, the name by which the visitor announced himself. It seemed impossible to doubt his word. He was a tall, clean-shaven man of forty or thereabouts, soberly dressed in black, a trifle nervous, perhaps—a nervousness indicated by twitching fingers—but otherwise straightforward in manner. He was the
very type of his profession, which it required no detective instinct to guess.
“I am butler, sir, to Mr and Mrs Darrell,” he said; “they live just outside Chenholt, a village about a couple of miles from here. I expect you know it.” He spoke with peculiar precision, accenting his words carefully—a strange contrast to his badly expressed letter.
“Yes?” queried Reggie.
“I have been with Mr Darrell for three months now,” continued Grimsby, “and I have noticed something which has alarmed me considerably. I have thought it over day and night, it has been an oppression to my mind. So I decided at last to come and ask your advice.”
He paused. “What have you noticed?” asked Reggie.
The butler approached a little closer to my friend. His fingers twitched nervously, but his voice was steady enough as he whispered rather than spoke: “I fear that Mr Darrell is poisoning his wife.” He raised his blue eyes—weak eyes they were—with evident sincerity. The man believed what he said.
Reggie knew the Darrells of Chenholt by repute. A young couple, not long married, who had settled in Surrey during the last year. The wife was popularly supposed to have provided the money of the ménage, but, for the rest, they were considered a happy and loving pair.
“This is rather a startling statement, you know,” said Reggie, “and one that you should not make without very definite grounds for suspicion. Have you got these?”
“Grave suspicions, yes,” answered the man. “I am sure of it in my own mind. Mrs Darrell has been in ill-health for the past three weeks—ever since Mr Darrell took to dosing her. He always gives her the medicine himself, and she seems to get worse after it. I have seen him over and over again tampering with the bottles. And I have heard him talking—talking to himself, as he does it. I have seen him give her the medicine, and noticed his face as he hands it to her. At meals, too, he has furtively added something to her wine, drops from a bottle or powder from a paper—many times I have seen this, but, of course, I couldn’t interfere.”
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