Rozzers don’t take kindly to having their noses tweaked. If they can’t have you up for a given crime, they take you in on a drunk and disorderly charge, then tell anyone foolish enough to ask that you fell down the stairs. Once inside the holding cells, any number of nasty fates can befall the unwary. When the Hoxton Creeper was in custody, the peelers got shot of seven or eight on their most-hated felons list by making them share his lodgings.
No, you don’t just breeze into a den of police with larcenous intent and a set of lock-picks. Unless you’ve a yen for martyrdom.
You walk up honestly and openly, without trace of an Irish accent. You ask for Inspector Harvey Lukens of the Special Irish Branch and buy whatever you want. Not with money. That’s too easy. As with the Grand Vampire, you find something the other fellow wants more than the item they possess which you desire. Usually, you can cadge a favour by giving Lukens the current addresses of any one of a dozen Fenian trouble-makers on the ‘wanted’ books. The Branch was constituted solely to deal with a rise in Fenian activity, specifically a bombing campaign in the ‘80s which got under their silly helmets — especially when the pissoir outside their office was dynamited on the same night some mad micks tried to topple Nelson’s column with gunpowder.
Here’s the thing about the Special Irish Branch: unlike their colleagues in the Criminal Investigation Department, they didn’t give a farthing’s fart about English criminals. As far as Inspector Lukens was concerned, you could rob as many post offices as you like — abduct the post-mistresses and sell ‘em to oriental potentates if you could get threepence for the baggages — just so long as you didn’t use the stolen money in the cause of Home Rule. When it came to Surrey stranglers, Glasgow gougers, Welsh wallet-lifters, Birmingham burglars or cockney coshers, the S. I. B. were remarkably tolerant. However, any Irishman who struck a match on a public monument or sold a cough-drop on Sunday was liable to be deemed ‘a person of interest’, and appear — if he survived that far — at his arraignment with blacked eyes and missing teeth.
Shortly after luncheon — a reasonable repast at Scotland Yard, with cold meats and beer and tinned peaches in syrup — I left the building, frowning, and made rendezvous with a small band of fellows. Thieves, of course. Not of the finest water, but experienced. All persons of special interest.
Michaél Murphy Magooly O’Connor, jemmy-man.
Martin Aloysius McHugh, locksmith.
Seamus ‘Shiv’ Shaughnessy, knife-thrower.
Pádraig ‘Pork’ Ó Méalóid, hooligan.
Patrick ‘Paddy Red’ Regan, second-storey bandit.
Leopold MacLiammóir, smooth-talker.
They did not think to wonder what special attributes qualified them for this particular caper. The Professor was in it, so there’d likely be a pay-out at the end of the day.
“It’s no go the bribery,” I told them. “Lukens won’t play that game. So, it’s the contingency plan, lads. The coin’s in the desk, the desk’s in the basement office. I’ve left a window on the latch. When the smoke bomb goes off and the bluebottles run out of the building, slip in and rifle the place. Take anything else you want, but bring the Professor his Item and you’ll remember this day well.”
Half a dozen nods.
“Ye’ll not be regrettin’ this at all at all, Colonel, me darlin’,” said Leopold — who laid on the brogue so thick the others couldn’t make out what he was saying. He was an Austrian who liked to pretend he was an Irishman — after all, whoever heard of a Dubliner called Leopold? It’s possible he’d never even been to the ould sod at all at all.
Ó Méalóid pulled out a foot-long knotty club from a place of concealment and Regan slipped out his favorite stabbing knife. McHugh’s long fingers twitched. Shaughnessy handed around a flask of something distilled from stinging nettles. The little band of merry raiders wrapped checked scarves around the lower halves of their faces and pulled down their cap-brims.
I left them and strolled back across the road. Pausing by the front door, I took out a silver case and extracted a cylinder approximately the size and shape of a cigar. I asked a uniformed police constable if he might have a lucifer about him, and a flame was kindly proffered. I lit the fuse of the cylinder and dropped it in the gutter. It fizzed alarmingly. Smoke was produced. Whistles shrilled.
My thieves charged across the road and poured through the open window.
And were immediately pounced on by the S. I. B. Head-Knocking Society.
The smoke dispelled within a minute. I offered the helpful constable a real cigar he was happy to accept.
From offstage came the sounds of a severe kicking and battering, punctuated by cries and oaths. Eventually, this died down a little.
Inspector Lukens came out of the building and, without further word, dropped a tied handkerchief into my hand. He went back indoors, to fill in forms.
Six easy arrests. That was a currency the S. I. B. dealt in. Six Irish crooks caught in the process of committing a stupid crime. As red-handed as they were red-headed.
This might shake your belief in honour among thieves, but I should mention that the micks were hand-picked for more than their criminal specialties and stated place of birth. All were of that breed of crook who don’t know when to lay off the mendacity … the sort who agree to steal on commission but think for themselves and withhold prizes they’ve been paid to secure. Dirty little birds who feather their own nests. Said nests would be on Dartmoor for the next few years. And serve ‘em right.
It didn’t hurt that they were of the Irish persuasion. I doubt if any one of them took an interest in politics, but the S. I. B. would be happy to have six more heads to bounce off the walls or dunk in the ordure buckets.
You might say that I had done my patriotic duty in enabling such a swoop against enemies of the Queen. Only that wouldn’t wash. I’ve a trunkful of medals awarded on the same basis. Mostly, I was murdering heathens for my own enjoyment.
I unwrapped the handkerchief, and considered the Eye of Balor. It didn’t look much like an eye, or even a coin — just a lump of greenish metal I couldn’t tell was gold. In legend, Balor had a baleful, petrifying glance. On the battlefield, his comrades would peel back his mighty eyelids to turn his medusan stare against the foe. Stories were confused as to whether this treasure was that eye or just named after it. Desmond Mountmain claimed it had been given to him during a faerie revel by King Brian of the Leprechauns. I suspected that the brand of pee-drinking lunacy practiced by his sister ran in the family. It was said — mostly by the late Dynamite Des — that any who dared withhold the coin from a true Irish rebel would hear the howl of the banshee and suffer the wrath of the little people.
At that moment, an unearthly wail sounded out across the river. I bit through my cigar.
A passing excursion boat was overloaded with small, raucous creatures in sailor suits, flapping ribbons in the wind. The wail was a ship’s whistle. Not a banshee. The creatures were schoolgirls on an outing, pulling each other’s braids. Not followers of King Brian.
Ever since the tomato stall, I’d had my whiskers up. I was unused to that. This business was a test for even my nerves.
After a few moments, I carefully wrapped the coin again and passed it on to a small messenger — a street urchin, not a bloody leprechaun — with orders to fetch it back to Conduit Street. Any temptation to run off with the precious item would be balanced by the vivid example of the six Irishmen. The lad took off as if he had salt on his tail.