THE MURDER IN THE CITY.
IT is quite natural, and may be useful, when a murder remains undetected, to scold the Police, but it is not always just. When, as happens in nine cases out of ten, a crime can be ascribed with certainty to the criminal classes, the police can, of course, do a great deal. They have studied those classes, they have learned their ways and their haunts, they know where to seek them, and they can tell, what out- siders can never guess, who are likely to betray them. They receive information from men living on the confines of crime, and from watchful members of their own force. When, however, a great crime, say, a murder, is committed by any one outside the ranks of those classes, the police have little to
help them in detecting the guilty which ordinarily shrewd men have not. They see, no doubt, and weigh carefully the few data ; they can sometimes trace missing property, and they can employ patient trackers ; but they need a theory to act on, a clue, as they call it, and cannot be expected to be supernaturally quick in finding one. A criminal who escapes for an hour or two is in London lost as much as if he had dropped into the sea, until the police receive from casual observers, or persons anxious for reward, some hint of the pre- sence, often in an unthought-of place, of a suspicious indi- vidual. In this murder of Mr. Bartlett's clerk, for instance, in Arthur Street West, E.C., the police have little more to help them, beyond a few details, often misleading, than other men. The probabilities against the murderer belonging to the criminal classes are very strong. Burglars do not risk their liberty without knowing that there is something to gain, and there was next to nothing in Mr. Bartlett's office ; or without know- ing the premises, which appears improbable ; nor do they feel the access of horror which induced the murderer to part with his victim's watch and overcoat without a price. Smaller villains stop short of murder, either fearing to run a risk which is so entirely separate for the sake of a minute booty, or as reluctant to shed blood as honester men. If this is admitted, the crime was either perpetrated for some motive other than plunder, or by a man unaccustomed to crime ; and in neither case have the police any special advantage, either from their experience or their organisation. Neither will help them much to ascertain whether Mr. Perkins was likely to have pro- voked any one of the three passions which ordinarily produce violent murder—viz., jealousy, revenge, or fear—or whether any person among the millions of London had grown suddenly desperate for want of money. So far as appears, there is no ground for suspecting the existence of any one of the first three motives, Mr. Perkins appearing to those who knew him best a blameless young man, avowedly engaged to a young woman in his own rank of life, very steady, and leading the most usual of respectable lives. Of course, jealousy may exist and yet be unknown, and men may have secret enemies, but the best rule in such cases is to accept experience as a guide ; and in England it is found that while enemies usually stop short of murder, jealous lovers do not desire to conceal either their crime or its motive. They rarely fly, and never rob, as a robbery, however trifling, would alter the whole aspect of the crime in their own eyes, taking out of it all that they themselves see of excuse. Enemies of the savage kind Mr. Perkins can scarcely have had. A lawyer, no doubt, sometimes arouses bitter spites, and criminal lawyers are sometimes threatened ; but the theory that the criminal intended to kill Mr. Bartlett, and did kill his clerk, though conceivable, is wildly improba- ble, and entirely inconsistent with the robbery of the corpse. The police, therefore, are almost necessarily at fault, and no more to be blamed than hounds are when the fox crosses water.
We do not know that an amateur suggestion is of the slightest use, though we were correct as to the interpretation of the Muller murder of Mr. Briggs; but as we have a definite theory to produce, it may as well be stated. It will embarrass no investigation. We suggest, then, that on the evidence given to the public, a presumption exists that the Arthur-Street murderer was either a sailor or a 'long- shore man, probably a foreigner, from some northern seaport or dockyard, not very powerfully made, but tall enough to strike downwards on the victim's head. We believe this because, thinking the murder not planned, the possession of the weapon with which it was committed remains to be accounted for ; and no other class carries such a knife as must have been used, with blade large enough to inflict the wound discovered, and handle heavy enough to be used like a life- preserver. The use of two weapons is very rare, though Williams—the best known of murderers, because De Quincey turned the lamp of his genius on him—used a mallet, as well as his knife. Such a man, desperate for money, happened to be in Arthur Street, which is not far from the River, saw the open door, and entered, either to steal or extort, probably the former. Mr. Perkins either resisted or was about to resist, and his assailant, desperate and with the knife at hand, tried first to stun him with a downward blow with the handle, then struck rather wildly with the knife, and then catching his victim,—who fought naturally for retreat,—between the stairs and the outer door, killed him, almost cutting his head off in his panic fury. He then robbed the body, rolled it into the cellar, and finding him- self bloody, took his victim's overcoat, reascending the stairs to obtain it. He then fled, shutting the door after him, and so
marking the time of the tragedy, which must have occurred between the moment when Mr. Perkins's fellow-clerk left and the moment when a passer-by remarked that Mr. Bartlett's office door had been shut unusually early. Both times are known, and it is right to add that no suspicion, however faint, rests or could rest upon the fellow-clerk, who accounted for himself completely. The murderer, unused to crime, or at all events to crime so grave, walked away in a kind of horror to hide himself ; and with the universal instinct of seafaring men, or men employed by the water-side, took to the River, crossed it, as we imagine from his subsequent acts, and sought his own lodgings, or a lodging he knew of, somewhere near the River in Lambeth or its neighbourhood. By the evening of the next day, reflection on his crime had produced a terror which completely over-mastered him ; he had thought over every chance of identification ; and though not satisfied that the aluminium watch was valueless, he sacrificed both it and the coat, as possible evidence against himself, and diving into Griffin Street, York Road, possibly because it was more or less deserted on account of its being in pro- cess of demolition, possibly because he had lodgings in some place accessible through it, he left coat and watch on the doorstep where they were found and handed over to the police. That he would fly homewards, or to some place he knew, we take to be certain, for nowhere else could he hope without observation to clean his clothes, or obtain the second suit without which he would be perpetually exciting suspicion. Such a man, if his motive was plunder, would not be likely with only two pounds in his possession to leave London, unless he could obtain employment in some ship bound on a foreign voyage, and he is probably in this huge wilderness still.
That is a theory useful only because it accounts for the facts, but as liable to be upset by further evidence as any theory on which the police can act. They can do no more than we have done, that is, piece the facts together; and to say that they are useless is to misread the true object of their organisa- tion, which is to keep usual crime—crime which can be ex- pected or repeated—well down. They can no more prevent unusual crime, or punish crime when it leaves no trace, than the public can ; and no increase in their authority will help them much. As a matter of fact, in Paris, where the police can make preventive arrests, and employ spies not in the force, and act harshly on suspicion, murderis much more frequent than in London ; while in Russia, where the police dare do anything, plots against the lives of the greatest personages are revealed only by their success. Those police, moreover, have to deal with cities almost indefinitely smaller, for the difficulty of pursuit in a crowd does not increase in arithmetical, but geometrical ratio. The London Police is as good as we are likely to get, though it might be increased more regularly with the increase of population, and might occasionally in the higher ranks derive help from less experienced counsellors, who would speculate with freer minds. The temptation of an experi- enced Inspector to think that old crime will always give him some light on new crime must be irresistible, whereas it may occasionally only deceive.
Previous page
