even from the devil to solve a case.
So, perhaps it was possible that the relationship between Koznicki and Toussaint might evolve from uneasy collaboration to friendship. Koesler knew only that each of them was a good and dear friend of his and that there was nothing he could do to accelerate this friendship into three-sidedness.
“I even find it strangely encouraging,” Koznicki commented, “that we ourselves are in the very place where it all began.”
“Where what began?” Koesler asked.
“The modern approach to crime prevention and detection,” Koznicki replied.
Good, thought Koesler, as he chewed on his salad contentedly, the Inspector was about to launch into a lesson. Something he did very well and with self-satisfaction.
Koesler knew Koznicki to be not merely a police officer but also a most well-informed, well-read, and shrewd student of his profession.
Koesler had learned much about police work from Koznicki. He recalled particularly the Inspector’s impromptu lecture on evidence at the scene of a crime. Koznicki had waxed near-reverential about the silent sign that would never lie or deceive. The sign that would be present only once, from the time the crime was committed until someone disturbed it. It could be a shell casing, a fingerprint, fibers from a coat or blanket, a strand of hair, a drop of blood. Investigators might fail to discern the message of the evidence at the scene of a crime. But the evidence would never mislead the alert investigator.
“As is the case with everything else in civilization,” Koznicki continued, “police procedures developed very slowly. But it is interesting how many of these procedures, especially as we in the western world have adopted them, developed right here in England. Take, for example, the field of forensic science.”
“Like Dr. Quincy on television?” Koesler interrupted.
Koznicki smiled. “No, more as in our own Dr. Wilhelm Moellmann, Chief Medical Examiner of Wayne County and one of the world’s best forensic scientists. But, very good, Father, that you draw our attention from the abstract to the concrete.
“Think of the expertise of a Dr. Moellmann and the exquisite tools of science he has to work with, and reflect that just little more than a century ago, the average physician’s participation in police work consisted of advising the authorities as to how much torture the accused could absorb, and, ultimately, when the accused or convicted person was dead.
“With that in mind, consider that in just one year in the late 1970s, the seven British regional forensic science laboratories dealt with more than 50,000 major criminal cases, the majority of them successfully.
“Why, it was just at the turn of this century that one Professor Locord formed the principle behind all forensic science. That is, that ‘every contact leaves a trace.’ Which means that a criminal always leaves something at the scene of the crime and, on the other hand, always takes something away. He may, for instance, leave a dead body, but take away some of his victim’s blood. Or leave a body and a hammer while taking away some tissue and hair.
“A hit-and-run driver may leave a scraping of paint at the scene of his crime while taking away a broken headlight or a peculiar type of soil or gravel in his tire tread. Do you see?” Koznicki clearly enjoyed lecturing even if the class size was, as in this case, minuscule.
“Something like what you once told me about evidence at the scene of a crime, isn’t it, Inspector?” Koesler commented.
“Yes,” said Koznicki brightly. He remembered well the lecture and was pleased his pupil had too. “The scene of a crime is a never-to-be-repeated prime clue. The silent evidence that does not deceive. Locord’s formula adds a dimension in that in forensic science, one looks not only for what is present at the scene of the crime but also for what is missing. That which the criminal has taken with him. Once you find both what was left behind and what was taken, you have found the perpetrator of the crime.” Koznicki concluded with a tone of finality.
“Now,” he proceeded, “when you come to the field of crime in England, one finds that, much the same as in the field of forensic medicine, dramatic changes come about as the result of simple but radical ideas.
“In the fourteenth century, about the time of the Black Death, there was a veritable war going on between crime and civilization. You may think we have a problem with organized crime today. But back then, gangs of criminals would band together and descend on towns where festivals were being held. The people gathering to celebrate would be lulled into believing they had achieved safety in numbers, never suspecting that great hordes of criminals would fall upon them and commit almost every outrage imaginable.
“And there was not much going on in the way of detection. The conventional way the authorities would process an accused person—when they were fortunate enough to catch one—would be to torture him until he confessed—and, as we have seen, the ‘physicians’ were there to tell the officials how much torture the accused might be able to bear. Or the accused was bound and thrown in a lake; if he floated, he was innocent. Or he was brought into the presence of the corpse and if the deceased’s eyes opened or wounds bled, the man was guilty.
“In the middle of the eighteenth century, Henry Fielding, the novelist—and author of
“A simple concept like that of Professor Locord, but one whose time was long overdue.
“Fielding’s idea led to the formation of the Bow Street Runners, the forerunners of the ‘bobbies’ of the nineteenth century.”
Koznicki looked across at his two companions with a self-reproachful expression, as if suddenly realizing that he had talked throughout almost their entire dinner. Although, somehow, he had managed to finish his dinner while lecturing between bites.
“Oh, I do beg your pardon,” he said, “I am afraid I have gone on far too long.”
“Not at all, Inspector,” said Toussaint, whose expression throughout had been, as usual, inscrutable. “Please continue.”
“Well, there is little more to tell. Sir Robert Peel, after whom the bobbies are named, organized the first professional police force for London, after trying out his theories in Dublin. He selected the building, which backed into an ancient court known as Scotland Yard, thus the name. The first commissioners laid down some guidelines that today, 150 years later, are still as significant and relevant to police work as they were then.
“I secured a copy of those guidelines this afternoon from my friend. Superintendent Charlie Somerset.” He took a sheet of paper from his inside jacket pocket. “Let me just read them to you: ‘The primary object of an efficient Police is the prevention of crime: the next that of detection and punishment of offenders if crime is committed. To these ends all the efforts of Police must be directed. The protection of life and property, the preservation of public tranquility, and the absence of crime will alone prove whether these efforts have been successful, and whether the objects for which the Police were appointed have been attained.’
“And now,” Koznicki summed up, “we find ourselves in London, determined to prevent a crime, in the very city where the notion of crime prevention came to full flower.
“But,” he shrugged apologetically, “I have made a short story too, too long.”
“Not at all, Inspector,” reiterated Toussaint. “It was a very informative explanation. And interesting. One does not often think of the police in terms of crime prevention. The more popular image is that they are the ones who come to pick up the pieces and to catch the criminal.”
“Now that you have brought it up,” Koesler said, “I can think of many instances when the presence of the police can prevent crime: speeders on the highways, shoplifters in the stores, muggers in the streets—they all have to watch out for the police. And with the police around, the potential criminal undoubtedly is deterred from acting.”
“Let us hope that the presence of the police in Westminster Abbey tomorrow evening will deter a couple of assailants,” said Toussaint.
“From every indication we have so far,” said Koznicki, “I fear that killers such as the ones we are dealing with are not the type to restrain themselves from acting even if they know the police are present. These give every evidence of being such fanatics. We will simply have to anticipate them and move faster than they do.”
“Let us pray you are able to,” said Toussaint.
“Say,” said Koesler, “maybe that’s an answer to our vocation crisis: Maybe we should train seminarians to
