Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,
Families by tens and dozens....”
Every night when the city folk had left their chop-houses or their warehouses, this mysterious fellow with the greenish eyes went in quietly with four big wire cages, some netting, and a long willow wand. The nets, which had pouched pockets, he put up against the passages and doorways. Then, in the absolute darkness, he stood motionless for an hour. Presently there came a patter of tiny feet, a squeaking, a glint of ravenous little eyes. They were all round him, searching for the crumbs, ravenously. Suddenly he uttered a strange beastlike cry, in his throat, like yodeling, and whipped the floor with his long white wand. The rats were mesmerized, stupefied. They tried to make their way back to their holes, but fell into the poacher’s nets, dozens and scores, on a good hunting night. He emptied them into the cages, covered them with white cloths, stood motionless again, waited again, made a second bag. At dawn he departed with his sack well loaded, to sell to “fancy gents” at four-pence each, in the suburbs of London.
The foreign element in London was, on the whole, very law abiding. For centuries London had been the sanctuary of political refugees from many countries of persecution, and it was a tradition, and a good tradition, of England, that no questions should be asked as to the political faith of those who desired shelter from their own rulers. Even the revolutionaries of Europe, and the “intellectual” anarchists, had the good sense, for a long time, not to stir up trouble or attack the laws of the land in which they found such generous exile. This rule, however, was abruptly broken by a gang of foreign bandits who carried out a series of alarming robberies, and, when tracked down at last, shot a police inspector and wounded others.
One of their own men was mortally wounded in the affray and carried bleeding to a house in Grove Street, Whitechapel, one of the worst streets in London, where he died. He was a young Russian, as handsome as a Greek god, in the opinion of the surgeons of the London Hospital, with whom I happened to be lunching when one of the juniors rushed in with the news that the corpse had been secured, against all competitors, by the “London.”
It was the death of this Russian which gave the clue to the habits and whereabouts of the gang with whom he had been connected. Their women were caught, and “blew the gaff,” and it was discovered that the leader of the gang was another young Russian called Peter the Painter. Scores of Scotland Yard detectives set out on the trail, and another police inspector lost his life in the endeavor to arrest three of the bandits at a house in Sidney Street, Whitechapel, where they defied all attempts at capture by a ruthless use of automatic pistols. Siege was laid to the house by the police and detectives, armed with revolvers, and an astounding episode happened in the heart of London.
For some reason, which I have forgotten, I went very early that morning to the Chronicle office, and was greeted by the news editor with the statement that a hell of a battle was raging in Sidney Street. He advised me to go and look at it.