Scotland Yard

“ No attacks are ever answered; no attempt is made to correct reports in the newspapers; no official ever gives out a statement for publication.
The expenditures of the department are not ever subject to public review. It happens, therefore, that Scotland Yard does not change and is not inconvenienced by change in administration. It is able to go ahead undisturbed with its work and to preserve a continuity in its investigations impossible to any public-detective center of the United States.
Scotland Yard's greatest difficulty in a man hunt is with the Continental criminal. ”

“ I have made up my mind not to trust to what the regular police may or may not be able to do in this matter, but to employ a private detective on my own account. I happen to be acquainted with a man who is nothing less than a sleuth-hound in such a case as this. He has succeeded more than once when Scotland Yard has failed ignominiously. His services I shall secure; and if it cost me the last sovereign I have in the world, I will do all that man can do to bring Gerald Brooke to the bar of justice. ”

“ It is organisation that makes Scotland Yard able to carry out its myriad duties, from testing motor omnibuses to plucking a murderer from his hiding place at the ends of the earth, from guarding the persons of Emperors and Kings to preventing a Whitechapel bully from knocking his wife about. The work must go on smoothly, silently, every department harmonising, every man working in one common effort. ”

“ A pleasant prelude to ten years’ penal servitude.
I am indebted to this noble-minded creature for many hints as to how burglaries are concocted and how best guarded against, and I am of opinion that attention to them will do more to obviate their frequency than all the absurd warnings as to window shutters and area gates, that periodically emanate from Scotland Yard. No burglary is ever attempted on chance; in fact, no house is ever entered except on exact and reliable information. ”

“ Sir Timothy continued, “there, fondly believing himself to be unnoticed, is an emissary of Scotland Yard. Really, of all the obvious, the dry-as-dust, hunt-your-criminal-by-rule-of-three kind of people I ever met, the class of detective to which this man belongs can produce the most blatant examples.” ”

“ The news of this tragical event, therefore, fell like a thunderbolt upon society, eclipsing every other topic in the newspapers, in conversation, and general interest. The first instinct of every one appeared to be to look upon the whole affair as a ludicrous piece of mismanagement on the part of the police, and Scotland Yard came in for a good deal of scathing criticism, as is usual in such cases. But when the evidence before the magistrates was carefully read, and sundry other little matters discussed, men's tongues began to run less glibly. ”

“ Scotland Yard's method of arrest is always direct; it is never by ruse or finesse. Once the man hunt is ended and the quarry rounded up, the constables force in and seize him. It is a method unusually dangerous.
Take, for example, the Houndsditch affair, in December, 1910. Here four desperate foreign cracksmen entered a house adjoining a jeweler's shop. They were at work with a crowbar, forcing the wall, when sounds were detected and the police notified. ”

“ He was one of the experts of Scotland Yard—an old-thieves man. These experts were for a long time the only means which the department had for identifying criminals. There were certain of these persons in every division of the Metropolitan Police. It was their business to know personally all the thieves and crooks operating in that part of London.
For many years the old-thieves man was wholly relied on. If a crime was committed an essential clew was picked up in the theater of the act and the detective worked on that clew in connection with the old-thieves man of his division. ”

“ It would not be exact to say that there is no specialization in Scotland Yard in any way parallel to the detective experts of the Continent. There are individuals in these divisions who become skilled in certain lines and are detailed to handle cases in which particular features are involved. But, as a rule, the whole organization is a rough, matter-of-fact, common-sense system for the investigation of criminal mystery.
The method is illustrated by the manner in which the police went about to discover the assassin of Lord William Russell. ”

“ They are trained in the regular metropolitan force and finally, if efficient, are assigned to the detective department.
Scotland Yard is a close, independent organization. It is not accountable to the London public. It cannot be controlled by it. It is little subject to the pressure of public opinion. It is entirely under the control of a commissioner, who is responsible alone to the Home Secretary. The people of London are not able to force explanations from Scotland Yard. The commissioner does not permit himself to be interrogated. ”

“ The detective grew a trifle alarmed. What he had said was only partially true, and he felt that he had gone too far.
“Don't misunderstand me,” he said. “Of course, within reason, we are bound to respect Lord Penshurst's wishes, but Scotland Yard is not a political association; it is a police force, and if we find crime being introduced into politics it is certainly our business to inquire into the matter.”
“Do I understand you to suggest that Lord Penshurst would dabble in crime?” asked Westerham. ”

“ The thing was a palpable assassination; an open verdict has a tendency to relax the exertions of Scotland Yard. I hope I shall not be accused of immodesty, or of making personal reflections, when I say that the Department has had several notorious failures of late. It is not what it used to be. Crime is becoming impertinent. It no longer knows its place, so to speak. It throws down the gauntlet where once it used to cower in its fastnesses. ”

“ There is romance in Scotland Yard—a romance that has never been written, that may never be written. It concerns the building up, in the face of incredible obstacles, of a vast, ingenious machine which has become one of the greatest instruments of civilisation the world has ever seen. ”

“ That any woman could love him he could not conceive. And now her very presence, the fragrant nearness of her, at once soothed and alarmed him. Here was a detective virtually in charge of a woman suspected of murder—and he was frightened of her! He knew the warrant in his pocket would never be executed, and that Scotland Yard would not proceed with the prosecution, because, though Scotland Yard makes some big errors, it does not like to have its errors made public. ”

“ Scotland Yard has, happily, never yet associated Harvey Shaw, Justice of the Peace for the County of Rutland, and one of the visiting justices of Oakham Gaol, with Alfred Dawnay, alias Day, whom they are so very eager to arrest,” and he laughed grimly. “Mine is an amusing situation, I assure you, to sit on the Bench and try prisoners, well knowing that each police-officer who appears as witness would, if he knew, be only too eager to execute the warrant outstanding.” ”

“ Not a man but knows his work. The top-notch of efficiency is good enough for Scotland Yard. Its men are engaged in business pure and simple, not in making shrewd detective deductions. The lime-light which occasionally bursts upon them distorts their ways and their duties. Really, they have little love for the dramatic. Newspaper notoriety is not sought, and men cannot "work the Press," as in times gone by, to attain a fictitious reputation.
It is through well-chosen lieutenants that Sir Edward Henry works. ”

“ In detective stories the attitude of members of Scotland Yard to the deductive expert is that of admiration based on conscious inferiority, but in real life the experts of Scotland Yard have the utmost contempt for the deductive experts and their methods. ”

“ I said. "Have you made inquiry of Scotland Yard?"
"Oh, yes. I was over there a month ago. But they either know nothing, or else they are not inclined to help us." Then with a faint smile he added, "As you know, mon cher ami, I have no very great admiration for your English police. Their laws are always in favour of the criminal, and their slowness of movement is astounding to us." ”

“ The Scotland Yard man would see to that.
“How are you, Westaway?” exclaimed Inspector Payne, as he stood his bicycle against the wall of the house near the front door. “What do you mean by giving us a murder when we’ve got our hands full? We’ve burglaries in half a dozen towns, a murder at Denham, two unidentified bodies washed ashore in a boat at Hemsley, and the disappearance from Lewes of a well-known solicitor who is wanted for embezzling trust funds. Let me introduce you to Detective Gillett, of Scotland Yard. I’m turning the investigation of this murder of yours over to him. ”

“ The perpetual solving of riddles is one of the commonplace duties of Scotland Yard, not only in the C.I.D., but in every branch of the business. Luck may, and sometimes does, help a detective to solve a mystery; but luck never helps to quell a riot or maintain order on the King's highway in times of stress.
It is for such matters as these that they keep a Riddle Department at headquarters. They call it the Executive Department, but no matter—as Mark Twain would say. It is there to supply the answers to the conundrums that are always cropping up in police work. ”

“ Scotland Yard insists that a sensible constable of long experience is more apt to locate a criminal in a man hunt than a laboratory specialist is. They say that, though they may have failed to solve the criminal mysteries in the cases indicated by the German critics, they would be entirely incapable of the blunder of the Teuton criminologists in the Austrian Peasant case.
One morning, in a tributary of the Danube, the police found a body horribly mutilated. ”

“ As everyone knows, the ridges and whorls upon the hands of no two men are alike, therefore it seemed clear that Scotland Yard, now aroused, would very quickly—owing to its marvelous classification of the finger-prints of every criminal who has passed through the hands of the police during the past quarter of a century—fix upon the person who had laid his hands upon the steel safe door. ”

“ They do not believe that a criminal can be distinguished because his temperature rises when the crime is discussed before him; or that one can put a gauge on his wrist and determine his guilt by his quickening pulse. A superintendent at Scotland Yard is very apt to smile when you tell him that Prof. Hans Gross, of the University of Gratz, asserts that what a woman suspected of crime does not say in words, or express in her features or by the movement of her hands, can always be determined by the position of her feet. ”

“ You might explain to the constable on duty in the neighbourhood—if he comes to inquire, that is—the cause of the disturbance, and that Scotland Yard is in charge and Superintendent Narkom already on the premises. That’s all, thank you. You may close the door and take your colleagues below. Hullo! our prisoner seems to be subsiding into something akin to gibbering idiocy, Mr. Trent. Fright has turned his brain, apparently. ”

“ But usually Scotland Yard is not imposed on twice by the same person.
Police science has evolved the Criminal Record Office very gradually. The problem of the incorrigible offender is one that many years' study has not yet completely solved. When the licence system was first initiated the police were instructed by the Home Office not to interfere with the ticket-of-leave men, and, not strangely, these men found opportunities of crime made easy for them. ”

“ A weekly list of habitual criminals is published by Scotland Yard, describing convicts about to be released from prison, with the names and descriptions of habitual criminals. These lists give a convict's physical aspect, his name and aliases, specialty in crime, office number, record file and finger-print form in Scot land Yard; so that a complete record of the entire criminal class is available everywhere to the police in England. ”

“ It was the photograph-room of Scotland Yard, through which every cab-, omnibus-, and tram-driver, and every conductor has to pass once in three years. "The Yard" is as careful with a cabman on licence as with a convict on licence, although for different reasons. But the chief idea is the same—the safety and comfort of the public.
There are thousands of dossiers stored in the vaults, which give a complete history of each man holding a licence in connection with a public vehicle—records of warnings, convictions, medical tests, and so on. ”

“ Another cannot get a berth because his clothes are in pawn; a detective is sent to redeem them.
There is no bother or fuss. Scotland Yard knows the class too well. It knows that it is often cheated by liars; on the other hand, prompt help may really redeem a man. Every chance is given a man to run straight, however often he has fallen. And most of those who are helped do not forget.
There are, however—as there must be—many who take advantage of the system. ”

“ In the circumstances it is perhaps fortunate for the reverend sleuth that he nearly always happens to be in either at the death or immediately after it, instead of being summoned a day or two later when the grotesque circumstances of the crime have baffled the panting ingenuity of Scotland Yard. ”

“ Don't you think it's enough to make a man furious to have an official from Scotland Yard come into his house here in the heart of London and warn him that he is in danger of being kidnapped?"
"I don't think that I went quite so far as that," the inspector objected, "nor do I in any way suggest that, sooner or later, the people who are responsible for Mr. Rees' disappearance will not be brought to justice. ”