DETECTIVE'S ADVENTURES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 30 July 1907, Page 4

DETECTIVE'S ADVENTURES.

Home dramatic stories of Mb detective experiences are related by Inspector Walsh, who leaves Scotland Yard after twenty-nine years' service. He has been one of the most noted guardians of royal visitors to this country (says the London Daily Mail) and leaves the Metropolitan Force to enter upon a private inquiry agency.

Mr Walsh narrates an incident which undoubtedly saved his life,and thu.se who were with him, Including Superintendent Melville. It was immediately after the Bavachel Anarchist outrages in Paris. The proprietor of tho Vafc Verrey, in Paris, had given evidence against Ravachol, and in consequence his restaurant was blown up, and two customers were [ killed and the owner injured. Two men were suspected, Mennicr and Francois, and the Kngllsh police were notified that they had escaped to England. Both were described as desperate men, and Francois had especially been determined in his statements that lie would not be captured alive. The French police had informed their English confreres that he was a slight man in face and figure and gave the impression that he was not strong.

"Instead," Baid Mr Walsh to a Daily Mail representative, "he was a perfect Samson, one of the strongest men I ever put roy band on. We found out that he was living in a street in Poplar, and four of us, including Mr Melville and Mr Mclntyre, went down there. We knew the house, but were not desirous of approaching the house to let Francois know what we were about. As good luck would have it, the tenant of the louse—Francons and hiß wife being lodgers—cames out, and I got chatting with him, finally going with him Into the corner public-house, where the others were.

"There the landlord told us that Francois was a most peculiar man, Every time a knock came to the door he looked out of the window. He had taken the carpet off the stairs so that no one could go up quietly, and his room door only opened about a foot. It was evident that we were going to have trouble, and In the end we planned that Mclntyrc and I should go up the stairs, while the others held the front and rear. Melntyre said, chaffingly, 'Old chap, have another drink; it may be the last we shall have together,' and we did, fortunately for me, have another drink. •'While we had delayed that little time Francois had ventured out, lie went off with an oil can, and though for the moment we thought we had lost him, it turned out all right. Two of us took the top and two the bottom of the street, and let him pass. Mr Melville spoke to him in French when he was near bis door, calling him M. Francois, and he replied at once. Then we had him, but the struggle that followed was one of the worst I ever was in.

"The four of us rolled in the gutter. It was a street with costers' stalls, and we knocked these over in our struggle, and I thought the man would get away through the sympathies of the crowd. We were at our wits' end till we said, 'Don't meddle; he's Jack the Kipper,' for it was about the time of those outrages. Well, then, we had no end of a job f.O save him from the crowd. He was the most muscular man I ever arrested. Mcnnier was arrested by Mr Melville single-handed at Victoria station afterwards. He had a revolver in his possession.

"Francois' room was a sight to see. He told me in prison that he never meant to be arrested without costing twenty lives, and he had planned it all out. He bad stripped the carpet from the stairs and arranged the bottom step so that it would creak. His lied was brought to the door so that it could only open a foot and a half. In a line with it was a table with a loaded revolver and fifteen cartridges all laid out ready. He said he would have shot us one by one as we came up, jumped out of the window and got away. He was a desperate mnn, and but for our short delay both Mclntyre and myself would have unquestionably been shot." In the twenfy-nine years he has been in the force, Mr Walsh, who is a native of Mallow, County Cork, has seen great changes. He was first attached to the old bow-street division, and was stationed in Seven Dials and Drury Lane. The whole quarter was full of burglars, coiners, blackmailers, and racing thieves. One notorious gang was called the "Forty Thieves," and was composed of young girls of from fourteen to eighteen, who enticed men into the Dials, where they would be leisurely robbed, and by means of their papers, afterwards blackmailed.

"My first promotion 1 It was owing to the success I had in breaking up the Forty Thieves gang. _Afterwards I was on port duty when dynamite outrages were occurring."

"Had you much to do with politicians at that time?"

! "Yes, I was in attendance on Mr Balfour for years when he was Chief Secretary for Ireland. I found him one of the best of gentlemen, but he never took any notice of us when wo were on duty. The truth is, the man has not the slightest fear, and I believe never cared whether we were there or not. But naturally the authorities were very anxiouß about him. He, himself, I know, would rather have been without us. But he doeß not forget. Years afterwards he learned through an accidental meeting that my wife was just recovering from a long and severe illness of the rheumatic type, and he insisted on sending her to Buxton for a stay entirely at his expense."