The Poetical Policeman
The day Mr. Reeder arrived at the Public Prosecutor’s office was indeed a day of fate for Mr. Lambton Green, Branch Manager of the London Scottish and Midland Bank.
That branch of the bank which Mr. Green controlled was situate at the corner of Pell Street and Firling Avenue on the “country side” of Ealing. It is a fairly large building and, unlike most suburban branch offices, the whole of the premises were devoted to banking business, for the bank carried very heavy deposits, the Lunar Traction Company, with three thousand people on its payroll, the Associated Novelties Corporation, with its enormous turnover, and the Laraphone Company being only three of the L.S.M.’s customers.
On Wednesday afternoons, in preparation for the pay days of these corporations, large sums in currency were brought from the head office and deposited in the steel and concrete strongroom, which was immediately beneath Mr. Green’s private office, but admission to which was gained through a steel door in the general office. This door was observable from the street, and to assist observation there was a shaded lamp fixed to the wall immediately above, which threw a powerful beam of light upon the door. Further security was ensured by the employment of a night watchman, Arthur Malling, an army pensioner.
The bank lay on a restricted police beat which had been so arranged that the constable on patrol passed the bank every forty minutes. It was his practice to look through the window and exchange signals with the night watchman, his orders being to wait until Malling appeared.
On the night of October 17th Police Constable Burnett stopped as usual before the wide peephole and glanced into the bank. The first thing he noticed was that the lamp above the strongroom door had been extinguished. The night watchman was not visible, and, his suspicions aroused, the officer did not wait for the man to put in an appearance as he would ordinarily have done, but passed the window to the door, which, to his alarm, he found ajar. Pushing it open, he entered the bank, calling Malling by name.
There was no answer.
Permeating the air was a faint, sweet scent which he could not locate. The general offices were empty and, entering the manager’s room in which a light burnt, he saw a figure stretched upon the ground. It was the night watchman. His wrists were handcuffed, two straps had been tightly buckled about his knees and ankles.
The explanation for the strange and sickly aroma was now clear. Above the head of the prostrate man was suspended, by a wire hooked to the picture-rail, an old tin can, the bottom of which was perforated so that there fell an incessant trickle of some volatile liquid upon the thick cotton pad which covered Malling’s face.
Burnett, who had been wounded in the war, had instantly recognised the smell of chloroform and, dragging the unconscious man into the outer office, snatched the pad from his face and, leaving him only long enough to telephone to the police station, sought vainly to bring him to consciousness.
The police reserves arrived within a few minutes, and with them the divisional surgeon who, fortunately, had been at the station when the alarm came through. Every effort to restore the unfortunate man to life proved unavailing.
“He was probably dead when he was found,” was the police doctor’s verdict. “What those scratches are on his right palm is a mystery.”
He pulled open the clenched fist and showed half a dozen little scratches. They were recent, for there was a smear of blood on the palm.
Burnett was sent at once to arouse Mr. Green, the manager, who lived in Firling Avenue, at the corner of which the bank stood; a street of semidetached villas of a pattern familiar enough to the Londoner. As the officer walked through the little front garden to the door he saw a light through the panels, and he had hardly knocked before the door was opened and Mr. Lambton Green appeared, fully dressed and, to the officer’s discerning eye, in a state of considerable agitation. Constable Burnett saw on a hall chair a big bag, a travelling rug and an umbrella.
The little manager listened, pale as death, whilst Burnett told him of his discovery.
“The bank robbed? Impossible!” he almost shrieked. “My God! this is awful!”
He was so near the point of collapse that Burnett had to assist him into the street.
“I—I was going away
