BRITAIN'S CHIEF SLEUTH

Evening Star, Issue 20132, 23 March 1929, Page 22

BRITAIN'S CHIEF SLEUTH

SHERLOCK HOLMES OF REAL LIFE SIR WYNDHAM CHILDS’S RECORD Policemen ransacked the homes of the two men charged with automobile theft. The revolvers and cartridges' they found went back with them to Scotland Yard, in London, where a lean man with linos of weariness under his almond-shaped eyes became abnormally busy with a microscope. A charge of murder followed, and the motor car thieves were banged, for the man with the micriscope had proved, by comparing" the revolvers with the bullets tired in a sensational murder some time before, that the two were guilty. When Ids work was (.lone the lean man went to his home a quiet country cottage, once occupied by a notorious login- ayman, He stuffed an old pipe, smiled at his wife, and began to draw the bow over the worn strings of a bi loved violin. This, last may sound N;e our old friend Sherlock Holmes, but this is not Action. As a matter of fact, we learn from C, Patrick Thompson, in the New York ‘Herald-Tribune’ magazine, we have been watching Sir Wyndham Childs, the super-sleuth of Kngland’s most sensational murder mystery of 1927-28. And now, we learn, Sir Wyndham is retiring as Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard and head of tho Criminal Investigation Department and Special Branch (secret police), because of a disagreement with the Home Secretary over reorganisation and the powers and methods' of his department, it is a nice point, over which criminologists lately have argued, we learn, whether the piece of work already described was more or less remarkable than another little masterpiece of Childs's—the so-calPd pattern, due, of which we read:

THE " PATTERN CLUE.” “A man had boon killed with a sporting gun. The sleuths were at a loss. Childs examined Die pattern of shots on the body, related that pattern to all known types or ‘porting gun, narrowed the search to one type, and drew conclusions, which when tested led to the arrest and conviction ot the nnud * or. ■‘Glance at another picture; “A calk from the War Uliice. A document containing military ndermation ot the most secret character is missing. Where can it be? Where, indeed! Before sunset the loan man lias traced tho paper to Hie mysterious building in which the Russian Trade Delegation i$ housed, tho place known as Arcos “ War Off ico communicates with Government.. Premier, Home Secrelarv. and foreign Secretary confer and decide that they have to know what thev are likely to hml in the concrete anil sled sale of Arcos bclore they risk a raid. Can one justily a raid oven if this particular document is not found:One must bo sure of one’s ground. . . . If a search fails, the Government may fall, ami in any case the Hoi.c Secretary, on whoso responsibility the raid must he ordered, will have to resign. ” TTm lean man tolls the politicians what he knows Hiey will I ml, apart from what ho is prepared to bet they will line!, and on his advice the police net is thrown out, ami batteries ol pneumatic picks begin to break the outer coneret walls of strong rooms, wbilo the hissing oxyacotyleuo blowlamps bile into the steel walls of great sates. The loan man, iu his habitual old tweeds and brown slouch hat, superintends operations.

“ the work over, he dines with 1 muds, grabs a music critic who was once a cathedral organist, and with him as accompanist plays for hours on his violin, ranging from jazz to Ravel ami the more intricate pieces of Grieg. .1 bus Childs in his role of Secret .Service chief, in the most celebrated I hat by no means the most artistic or difficult), of lus counter-espionage cases. EX-LAWYER AND SOLDIER. “A strange man. 11© is iilty-two now, stringy and sinewy, tanned by an outdoor lile. Ho was a lawyer, became a lighting soldier, toward the end of the Great Mar was assistant adjutantgeneral, and retired from tho Armv to Scotland Yard in 1921. All that'was known about him then was that lie W'as a firearms expert, hat! been nicknamed 1 Pi do ’ by his brother officers and ‘Tommy’s Friend ’ hv the rank and tile (lie got the men Christinas leave), and had as fine a flow of language on occasion as any man in the British Army.

“ His Hair lor police* work was an agreeable surprise at liir* Yard and a disagreeable surprise in the undenvmT?l and the spy jungles. Some military men translaied to the police are not so nselnl. Childs was voted the calmest and most acute chief the special bra noli bad known since its formation.’’ The spec!;! 1 branch has varied and delicate duties. It conducts counterespionage, getting advice of all known or suspected secret accents arriving in the island, and shadowing them, Mr Thompson tells ns. continuing;— “ It has in its secret files, among other curious documents, a report on Hie wer-tinm activities of Raima v MacDonald. MacDonald was busy advocating the formation of soldiers’ and sailors’ councils, and hobnobbing with queer customers. The Government began io wonder wlmrc these aetivilms ended, and ordered a report. The special branch switched its best watchers on. and a full report went, in Tt was decisive evidence that the future Premier was not a revolutionary or > traitor, but simply a passionate, if misguided. pacifist. CIGARS AND SUBMARINES. “The Admiralty was worried about the uncanny knowledge the German Admiralty had of the movements of British warships in and out of a number of ports. The special branch got busy. “'The information net brought in, among other news items, one showing that an unusual number of Dutch commercial travellers, with passports and papers in order, had arrived in England and were doing a remarkable business in cigars. “ Two of the bunch, Haickc Petrus Marinos Janssen and Wilhelm Johnanues Roos. were sending telegrams to Holland containing orders for cigars. The telegrams on file were collected and taken to Scotland Yard. The secret police observed with interest that the demand for cigars in the chief ports was most nnhsual, orders for. JO,ODD and 5,000 being wired to Holland almost daily. “ A special branch man went down and had a look at the head office of the cigar firm. It was a back room in a shady quarter. Watchers were posted. Tt was found that a mysterious foreigner visited the office daily. But concrete evidence was still elusive. “Janssen and Roos were grabbed separate!v and brought to the Yard.. The uhiei of the special branch had the two men held in different rooms. Janssen was .brought in. “ ‘ 1 suppose you don’t know a man

called Rons?’ asked the special branch chief. “The Dutchman shook his head. He had never heard the name belorc. Rons was immediately marched in. The expressions of the two ns they ronlronted each oilier were enough. They were searched. Codas found on thorn revealed that an order lor o.f’OO cigars smit from a port meant that five cruisers were lying there. A cancellation .wire meant that so many had moved out. And so on. (Germany got no more information of British licet movements through the cigar channel.)'’ In a time of crisis the secret arc rounded up. This happened on a wholesale scale on the outbreak ol war in August, 19kl.

AM IMPERTURBABLE BRANCH. “ Gough, chief detective ol the special branch, led a gigantic raid on all the haunts and homes of secret agents in the pay of loreign Powers. Restaurants, win" shops, calc, barber shop, tea .shop, beerhouse, tenement, flat, hotel, mansion—all were combed, and in warehouse, infirmary, and prison were gathered under police guard one of the most motley collection ol .foreigners that can over have been rounded up in one country before. “Among th.em was Chitchorin. I lie pale little Russian who afterwards been mo one of the chief Bolslmvik leaders and subsequently Foreign Minister ol the Soviet: the mistress ol the notorious Captain Grosse, the key of the German e-pionage in England, anil a lormer officer in a crack British regiment, who had unluckily become associated with a fascinating woman spy. “The same thing could, and would, happen again if occasion aifse. But so longas none of England’s vital naval, military, and air secrets are in danger of leaking out the special branch' does not get excited As for Russia, whenever another Bolshevik agent arrives m England to ginger up a world revolution the special branch yawns.” A copy of the famous Zinnviefl letter that swept the Labour Government from [lower when it was published by the/Daily Mail' had reached the special branch days before and faded to give it even :t kick.