RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONDON DETECTIVE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, 24 February 1891, Page 3

RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONDON DETECTIVE.

No i.— The Tattooed Initials. Some people have queer ideas of the dangerous localities of London . 1 ' ye laughed at them many a time. Gents often come tc me to guide them through these places, and I say to them, " Where would you like tc go?" and most likely they'll say, "Oh, Petticoat Lane on Sunday morning," <tt "some of the cheap lodging-houses i* Saturday night." or " Ratcliffe Highway " (that is St. George Street) "on Saturday night;" and then they'll strip off their watches and scarf-pins, and leave them and their ptirses at Hdirie, and (JOmfe with me through these place's— wherfe there is iiotHlng but poor people trying td ge"t an" Hdflest living — trembling for their lives every inch of the way, and with me laughing in my sleeve all the time. I should like to hear the tall stories they'll tell to their friends when they go home. The perils of an African lion-killer or an Indian scalp-hunter would be nothing to what they've gone through. Now, I don't mean to say that thieving doesn't go on in Middlesex Street, or that desperate men are not to be found in the lodging-house*, or that a fellow may not get a knife run into him iri St. George Street without qaite deserving it ; but these things may happen just as readily in other parts of London. And this I will say— and I think I should know— that there are quiet and innocent-looking places scattered over the metropolis through which those gents would Walk as bold as possible, singing away as pleased 1 sis Puttch\ but where I never go alone and without being ready at atiy moment to light for my life. There is scarcely a bit of my body that hasn't a mark on it, and most of these wounds were got in these quiet places. London life ? poh I th« outside world — and more especially the newspaper men and story-writers— know nothing about it. I've had them with me often, and they always admitted, when 1 chaffed them * bit; that wherever they were at a loss for anything they invented it. The best weapon you can carry, and the one I use most, is a pair of good fists and the power to use them, though for cowing a man into giving in quietly before he has mauled you all over a pistol is useful enough in its way.'- 1 am not small— just half-an-inch inside of six feet— and when I do strike out the man generally goes down, and seldom asks for anything slse. c I have put all this down first because it so Happens that I am going to begin with Ratcliffe Highway, by giving the case of Spanking Poll, who will be remembered yet ay many about the Highway. I was looking for a sailor whose ship had :ome home, but who had never gone near nis wife, and so left her and the children on :he parish, and dropped in one of the danc.ng saloons there one Saturday night think* ng I might find him there. The place was pretty full, the men being either sailors from ■he docks or oldiers from the barracks at Tower Hill. Three Germans were playing away at the head of the room, and to their music the company were dancing like fury. The girls were done up in the usual style with very flash dresses, mostly white, with low bodies, and great hats and long feather*. I've often chaffed them about these fine feathers making fine birds of such ugly wenches, for a worse-looking lot it would be hard to find anywhere. There might be one ! sxception in a hundred, and one of these was Spanking Poll, who, as I sat down at one of the narrow drinking-tables ranged all round the room, threw off her partner without a word, and came right across the room towards me with quite a different look on her face from that she showed to the others. I think I see her now— she was a perfect picture. Her cheeks were painted, of course, but that only made her look more like a wax figure. I never could understand how the man who had married her, and sworn before God to love and cherish her, could have forced her to that life. She was beautiful, lost and degraded though she was, and, what is better, she had a heart under all her paint, though few but me had ever discovered it. They called her Spanking Poll, because she seemed the wildest spirit among them. It was all put on. Her gaiety was a sham ; and her laugh, which you might have heard above all, out in the front shop, and thought so light and merry, was only her trick for making believe thai her heart was not crushed. She knew m« well, for I once saved her getting three months by mistake for another girl. -It wai all a plot, but I happened to get into thi thick of ii, and appeared at Guildhall just in time lo put things right. A little kindneap I,'oes ;i great way with her sort, and once when I was set on by three drunken soldiers with their belts she came up and routed the lot. Their own sergeant did not know them next day, their faces were so torn and scratched. Poll came straight across the room to me. with the different look that I mentioned beaming from her face, and as she came my eye fell from her face to her breast, for there was Poll's distinguishing mark, which caught the eye a great deal quicker than her beauty. It was the tatooing in dark blue ink of her initials, " M. T." In size the letters were about an inch square, and had probably been done by some sailor. "M. T." stood for her real name. Mary Travers. The letters glared at you from her white breast, and, I suppose, were looked upon as a certificate of the owner's spirit in bravely enduring the slow torture of the tatooing process. " I wanted to see you." she said, under her breath, with all the gaiety gone from her face, and nothing but grim seriousness in Us place. "Do you know Blue Bell ?" "The barmaid?" Oh, yes. I knew her well. She served in a flashy pub. in the City, and got her name from the blue ruin she sold. She was a very haughty dame, »nd professed to be rich enough to have ived without so serving if she had chosen. " What of her ?" I asked, when I had made sure that we were speaking of the same girl. " Well, I heard that he was after her, and that she encourages him, and would marry him if it weren't for me." "You mean Jim Travers, your husband?" "Yes. 1 couldn't believe the story, for she is such a grand lady, and, they say, is to get a lot of money when she marries, and he is such a mean -looking wretch that yoa would think a fine lady like her would spit in his face ; so I went up and had a look for myself.'* " And you saw him there, banging about her?" " I saw him \" and her nails almost met through the sleeve of my thin alpaca jacket as she spoke. I gently released my sleeve and the flesh she was pinching with it, and then she added — c " And he saw me too ; for he came ont into the lane, and followed me and kicked me." ' "The brute! Why did yon not holler sut and give him in charge ?" "I daren't. He'd have sworn against me, I'd have had three months. Everything's against the like of us. He wants me dead, for he can't marry her, and she can't get the money till I'm out of the way. He asked me how long I'd be of dying, and he looked jo like he wanted to help me away that I am frightened. -^That's what I wanted to see you about. If Igo missing, or if you don't see me about as usual, will you hunffor me ? 'Hunt everywhere— hunt high and low Ull you get me or my body. Will you?" ..She. seemed .so _dead in earnest .that I (To be continued.)