Chief Inspector Barrod pulled the house-telephone towards him.
¹ Assistant Commissioner (Crime). [↩︎]
CHAPTER VI.
Inspector John Poole
Detective-Inspector John Poole had had, as Chief Inspector Barrod had told Sir Leward Marradine, a good education. That is to say, he had been to a private school, one of the smaller public schools, and to the University of Oxford, where he had been an exhibitioner of St. James’s College. It was at Oxford that the seed of his rather eccentric ambition had been sown in him. His father, a country doctor with a comfortable practice, had intended him at first to follow in his own footsteps, but when John began to show signs of brain power above the family average, without feeling any of the “call” to a career of healing that is so essential to success in that profession, he had substituted the Bar as the goal of the boy’s academical efforts. John had a cool, clear brain, the facility to express himself concisely, and a capacity for hard and persistent work—a dogged pursuit of results—all admirable qualities in a barrister.
For a time young Poole followed the course laid down for him willingly enough. He took his Law Prelim. in his stride, and settled down to the pursuit of Final Honours—a First if possible, a Second as very second best. At the same time he did not neglect either the athletic or social side of University life. In his third year he got an Athletic Half-Blue, running as second string in the Low Hurdles, whilst in the summer he played cricket for his College and once figured, but without conspicuous success, in a Seniors’ Match. He began to rehearse a small part in The Winter’s Tale for the O.U.D.S. but, finding it took too much of his time, mostly spent in hanging about watching the stars spread themselves, he gave it up and took to political and other debating societies.
It was at a meeting of the Justice Club that he first made his mark. The society was debating the rights and wrongs of a certain celebrated criminal trial, and Poole, rising as a comparatively unknown member when the discussion had reached a stage of considerable confusion and imminent collapse, had reviewed the evidence for the prosecution from so original a standpoint and with such logical precision that the “jury” had returned an enthusiastic and overwhelming majority for the defence. As a result of this speech, Poole had been elected a member of the Criminologists Club, a much older and more reputable body, at whose meetings celebrated old members often attended and spoke. Here he had met Harry Irving, whose personality had fired John with his own enthusiastic interest in the fascinating subject of crime. On another occasion the principal speaker—not a member—was the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who, speaking on the subject of police work generally and criminal investigation in particular, had definitely opened John Poole’s eyes to the possibility of crime investigation as a career.
At first the young undergraduate thought of becoming an independent investigator—a private detective—possibly after a short career at the Bar with the object of picking up the legal side of the work. But after thinking over again all that the Chief Commissioner had said, and reading such books on the subject as he could lay his hands on, Poole came to the conclusion that the powers and machinery of the official police gave them such an overwhelming advantage over the “amateurs” that in the Force itself alone lay the prospects of really great achievement.
For the high offices in the Police Force, the Chief Constables of County Constabularies, the Chief and Assistant Commissioners of the Metropolitan and City Police, it was not of course necessary to have been a policeman. Such posts usually went to soldiers and sailors, or even occasionally to barristers, though in some of the Borough Police forces promotion from the ranks was becoming more common. But, from the first moment, Poole set his mind on one post, for which—though it was generally so filled—he did not consider that an army or navy training was sufficient. He wanted to be Head of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard.
He quite appreciated the commonly accepted attitude that a Chief Commissioner or a Chief Constable (outside Scotland Yard) needed a wider training, a broader outlook, than were to be obtained by step-by-step promotion in the police force. But for the particular and expert work of criminal investigation, for a degree of experience and proficiency such as he believed a great chief of the C.I.D. ought to have, he did not believe that any soldier, sailor, or barrister was qualified. On the other hand, he doubted, as did the authorities and public opinion generally, whether any policeman, as at present recruited, had the necessary qualifications, of the broader kind, either; in fact, he doubted whether, under present conditions, any individual living was properly qualified for the post he sought.
Poole therefore determined to qualify himself by obtaining both the broad outlook and the expert knowledge which he postulated. He completed his time at Oxford, taking a Second Class in Law at the end of his third year; then, in order to get some insight into the legal side of his work, he was called to the Bar and was lucky enough to get into the chambers of Edward Floodgate, the well-known criminal lawyer, who afterwards leapt into fame in the course of the astounding Hastings trial. With Floodgate he remained for a year, working with great energy to acquire as much knowledge and experience as possible in the short time at his disposal. At the age of twenty-three he joined the Metropolitan Police as a recruit, and after serving for fifteen months as a Constable in “C” Division, succeeded in catching the eye of the authorities and was transferred to the C.I.D. at Scotland Yard. At the age of twenty-seven he was promoted Sergeant and soon afterwards was lucky enough to figure prominently in two celebrated cases, in the latter of which, known as the Curzon case, he had come under the notice of Sir Leward Marradine himself. The A.C.C. was so impressed by the intelligence and persistence displayed by the young Detective-Sergeant that he put his name down for accelerated promotion, a step, as we have seen, not fully approved by Chief Inspector Barrod, in whose section he worked.