Daredevil
paper about the fight in Billingsgate (and she'd never even asked him
about it--what must he think of her for that?) ... and she'd had her
eyes opened to the danger he was in--and because there was some of
_her_, something infinitely precious, going with him into every peril
he encountered.... _Because, for days, she had longed for him to
want to marry her...._
Understanding of herself came as a shock, but it did not break her
resolution--merely turned it in another direction. He must have his
lesson. He must learn that methods which battered a Board of Enquiry
into submission (she had had that anecdote retailed to her with great
gusto by Bill Kennedy himself when that genial Assistant Commissioner
dropped in for a nightcap with Terry) would not have the same effect
upon her.
She was still strong in this decision when they prepared to leave,
and, when he had paid the bill and was waiting for his change, he had
this fact demonstrated to him.
"For the last time but----" He paused and studied the end of his
cigarette meditatively. "But two--for the last time but two, Susan,
when will you marry me?"
"Never," she said, and hoped she sounded inflexible.
His eyes danced. His optimistic egotism was unshakeable.
"Sure?"
"I've given you my answer," she said, straining to be haughty in the
face of that sunny smile. "So please don't ask me the other two
times."
"I shan't forget," he promised ambiguously. "But hear me, Susan!
Unless you come and ask me to marry you before midnight you'll sleep
in a Vine Street cell, probably!"
She stared.
"What for?"
"Safety," he said soberly. "It all depends on whether a certain
gentleman now in custody gets clear as he's promised. Now think!"
That evening, before he went to dinner, he made his last arrangements
for the guarding of Lew Mecklen. He made a personal inspection of
the cell, "fanned" the gunman himself for additional assurance in
case he should have succeeded in concealing a weapon, and appointed
three men with over ten years' service to watch the man, with three
others to relieve them at 2 a.m. He left a last warning.
"If Lew gets away, somebody's hopes of promotion'll be gone for ever!
Anything that's sent in to him is to be kept from him until after
I've seen it to-morrow morning. He's not to have the privilege of
ordering anything whatever from outside--you can tell him all his
money's gone to pay his hospital bill. Nobody is to be allowed to
enter the cell--don't even go in yourselves, unless he looks like
dying. That's all. If the Triangle scores again, I should say the
Chief Commissioner'll crucify every man in C Division with his own
hands!"
It was perhaps lucky for several people that Storm had exaggerated
the brutality of Sir Brodie Smethurst.
The circumstances, as far as one can collate the depositions of those
concerned, were as follows:
About nine p.m. that night Police Constable C811, who was standing at
the corner of Marshall Street and Broad Street, was approached by a
bulky ruffian whose dissonant caterwauling was clearly a public
nuisance. On being requested to desist, the large one smote C811
with some strength and his boot, even upon the shins, and was
promptly taken into custody. Leading his captive up Marshall Street,
C811 met three other musicians who, linked arm in arm, were making
the night air hideous with their attempts to harmonise _Rose in the
Bud_ and _Annie Laurie_. C811 told them to shut up, whereupon the
three ranged themselves in line before him, chorused a hearty _tu
quoque_ plus a vulgar expletive, and switched over to a pathetic
rendering, in comparative unison, of Tosti's _Good-bye_. They also
were added to the bag, and the four were shot into the charge room of
Marlborough Street Police Station, certified drunk and accused of
being disorderly withal, and locked up to await judgment in the
morning.
They had scarcely been removed to the cells when Police Constable
C796 arrived, having in tow two troubadours looking distinctly the
worse for wear, whom he charged with conducting a free fight in
Regent Street in the course of which they smashed a shop window.
They also were placed in durance vile.
Meantime, four husky specimens, who looked like farm hands in London
for the day, had drawn up in line before the station entrance,
teetering somewhat unstably on their heels, and had commenced to
regale the man on duty at the door with _Pack Up Your Troubles in
Your Old Kit Bag_--a subtle jest which was not appreciated until
later. After enduring their immelodious advice for some minutes, the
doorkeeper descended the steps and invited the four bards to move on.
The man who seemed to be the leader of the troupe failed to
understand.
"Move on?" he hiccuped, swaying slightly. "Norra bi'vit _hic!_
Thish--thish, of'cer--thish"---he tapped the Law solemnly on the
thorax--"_hic!_ thish commun'ty singin'.
Finesthingin--_hic!_--England. Go 'way. Don' spoil gai'ty
vnations." He turned to his waiting choir. "Nowthnboys--sh-show
thish of'cer wotchen _hic!_ do. Now. Al'gether."
Whereon the welkin of Marlborough Street rang with a cacophonous
interpretation of _Three o'Clock in the Morning_, the chronological
inaccuracy of which ancient ditty they appeared to perceive, for they
made of it an apologetically discordant dirge. After three more
unavailing efforts to make them cease their serenade, or to inflict
it on another thoroughfare, the door-keeper arrested them, and they
were marched into the station still wailing the refrain of that
touching ballad _Bye Bye, Blackbird_.
And now a problem arose. No police station has more than seven
cells, and by then all those at Marlborough Street were occupied.
Appealed to for instructions, the Divisional Inspector scratched his
head, for more than one prisoner cannot be placed in the same cell
except during riots. The four songsters, having been roughly
searched and charged, were now lined up at one end of the charge room
abiding the Inspector's decision on this knotty point, and their
persistent warbling was not helpful.
"... When somebaaaady waits for meee
(Shoogar's sweet, saow is sheee),
Baaaye-baaaye, blackburrrd.
Naowone used to laave 'rr understaaand meee,
Naowone knows----"
"SHUT UP!" bellowed the frantic Inspector, whom this ghastly vocalism
was rapidly driving to the verge of insanity, and added a virulent
commination.
He telephoned to Vine Street, only to learn that the more
aristocratic police station was already full. Unwisely, he chose to
exercise his own authority without appealing to headquarters.
"... Make maaye bed 'n' laaaight the laaaight,
Aiyull be home late to-naaight,
Blackburrrd, Baaaye-baaaye!"
The lullaby howled on to an appallingly strident conclusion, and the
chanticleers, without tarrying for applause, swept on to an
ear-splitting prayer that they might be permitted to join their lost
loves upon the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond.
"If this doesn't constitute a riot, God knows what does," squealed
the Inspector in anguish. "TAKE 'EM AWAY!!"
The four were sent to join their fellow-choristers in the bonny,
bonny cells of Marlborough Street. Even that did not end the torment
of C Division, for within the next half-hour they accumulated three
more psalmists and two men who had endeavoured to capture a
policeman's helmet. Towards ten o'clock, a man in a small two-seater
car drove down Marlborough Street, turned his car at right angles
across the road, and shouted to the constable at the station entrance
to stand clear, explaining that he was going to drive right in. He
even tried to carry out his threat, and when they went out to him
they found that he was very drunk. What was more, he was the only
one of the night's captures whom the Divisional Inspector knew by
sight.
"You're James Mattock," he said reproachfully. "Jimmy, we thought
you'd gone respectable."
Mattock shook his head, staggering a little. There was a fatuous
grin on his face.
"James--sh--nothin'!" he protested loudly. "Lis'en. Tell you ...
secret. I'm Queen 'f Sheba."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself--an old man like you," said the
Inspector sadly. "Take him away."
With that the influx ceased, and when a humdrum burglar was brought
in the Inspector sent him on to Vine Street, feeling that his own
preserves were already overstocked. There were now sixteen men
divided in between the six vacant cells, and that their lubrication
had been thorough was proved by the fact that muffled yelps of
carolling still came through the charge room door. It was impossible
to subdue the uproar, and the reserve P.C., whose duty it is to make
a round of the cells at half-hour intervals, was pleading to be
allowed to use chloroform.
About two a.m., when the vociferation was become slightly hoarse and
rather less enthusiastic, the reserve constable was making the round
when from one of the further cells came a shuddering cry and the thud
of a heavy fall. Running down the corridor, the constable found that
it came from one of the cells where three men were herded together.
One of them lay twitching on the ground, and the other two were
watching him helplessly.
"'Ad a fit," one of them muttered; and, seeing the gaoler, added:
"Fetch a doctor--Bert 'as these fits. 'Orrible, it is."
It was just at this moment, as far as one can gather, that a powerful
lorry drew up by the kerb, almost opposite the station but on the
other side of the road, and one of the men descended and lifted the
bonnet as though to investigate a breakdown. The constable at the
station entrance saw the incident, but thought nothing of it.
The reserve P.C., meanwhile, not knowing what to do, called the
relief Inspector, and together they entered the cell.
Both were promptly killed.
The three man who were guarding Mecklen rushed down the passage at
the sound of the shots and were faced by the three prisoners--the
epileptic having made a miraculous recovery--and threatened with
automatic pistols. They were brave men, these three constables. Or
else, perhaps, they did not expect the three toughs to shoot. Be
that as it may, they continued to advance, and were shot down in cold
blood.
The prisoners now moved swiftly. They took the cell keys from the
dead bodies and released the other prisoners, all of whom were armed.
Already there was a tumult in the charge room, and the sixteen, with
Mecklen, burst in upon a dozen or so officers, only two of whom had
had the time or forethought to arm themselves. The two died in their
tracks before they had time to fire a shot, and the others paused
aghast. In another second the seventeen men were streaming across
the road to the waiting lorry, the hind-most firing random bullets
backwards to discourage pursuit. They piled in, and the lorry moved
off, gathering speed, to the accompaniment of a final volley from the
escaped prisoners. Before the pursuing constables, who were now
armed, could return the fusillade, the lorry had turned a corner and
disappeared.
The Flying Squad and all reserves of every Division were called out,
and those first on the scene commandeered cars and taxis and dashed
off in chase, but the seventeen, with their lorry, got clean away.
As has been stated, the P.C. at the door had not taken much notice of
the lorry, and its number plates had been so caked with mud as to be
indecipherable from across the road, in the dim light. And, standing
midway between two street lamps, at night, one big lorry looks very
much like another--the doorkeeper was unable even to identify the
make with certainty, although he thought it looked like a Rossleigh.
But the most remarkable feature of the crime was its execution. For