"I don't believe the fireman was murdered," he said. "He was eating a biscuit, and a piece probably stuck in his throat and choked him. As to his being wet through, it was raining hard at the time."
The Spanish authorities were informed of this theory, and the body of the "murdered" man was exhumed. Still in the throat was the biscuit which had choked him.
There was, too, the case of an old woman murdered at Slough. Chief Detective-Inspector Bower, now head of the Port of London Authority police, ultimately arrested a man against whom there was nothing but suspicion, as apart from legal proof. And on the suspect was found a slip of crumpled paper in which coins had apparently been wrapped. The marks of the milling were plainly discernible. Mr. Bower wrapped twenty-one sovereigns—the amount of the money stolen from the victim—in another piece of paper. The marks corresponded, and it was mainly on that evidence that the prisoner was convicted.
CHAPTER V.
Making a Detective.
The detective net drawn round London is close and complete. Within the last two or three years the headquarters staff at Scotland Yard has completely changed, although there is no man with less than twenty years' service among the five chief detective-inspectors who act as Mr. McCarthy's chief-lieutenants.
These are the men who meet in special council when some great crime stirs London, and whose wits are bent to aid the active efforts of those deputed for the actual investigation. With them at Scotland Yard are some seventy or eighty subordinate detectives. Crime that affects London as a whole is usually dealt with direct from headquarters.
Every division of police in London has its detective detachment of from twelve to thirty men under divisional inspectors. Except in a very few of the outlying rural districts of London, there is no police station without one or more detectives. They are expected to hold local crime in check. But the machine is adaptable to contingencies. The "morning report of crime" sent to headquarters shows daily the ebb and flow of crime. A sudden wave of burglaries, for instance, might be met by reinforcements from another district or from the Yard itself.