To this patriotic sentiment (!) there was a universal assent given.
‘Yes,’ said one of the party, who talked a good deal about Paris, and seemed, from what he said, to have ‘done business’ in that city to some extent; ‘and that’s not the worst of it. Why, I have known these French police employ women to spot down a fellow. There was two years ago a big affair in the Champs-Elysées. The chief hand in it was a New-Yorker called Johnson. He would have got clean away with everything, had it not been for a female with whom he associated. He was caught, and got what they call travaux forcés for ten years. He never could find out who it was that peached on him. But one of his French pals discovered, after he was taken, that this woman had been all along in the pay of the police, receiving money from them as well as from Johnson.—Do you call that fair-play?’ he asked indignantly; to which a universal cry of ‘Shame! shame!’ was set up in reply.
There was one thing which struck me very forcibly throughout the evening I spent in what Frenchmen would call this eccentric company; and that was, how none of those present ever once compromised themselves by talking of any future ‘business.’ At anyrate, such matters were never made a subject of general conversation. For some time after I first joined the party, I noticed that some one or other of them would go and talk to another individual in a low tone of voice; but those who thus spoke to one another evidently took great care that what they said should not be heard.
In England, we set great value upon the publicity given by the press to everything that takes place. The company in which I found myself on this memorable evening—or at anyrate those with whom I spoke on the subject—praised this national peculiarity as much as, or even more than, most of us do. They said that the newspaper reports about ‘plants’ and the manner in which robberies are carried out, are, as a rule, the most utter rubbish; and that the daily accounts of what the police had or had not done in any particular case were of the utmost service to them, and virtually kept them informed of what their enemies, the guardians of society, were doing. The more publicity given to all cases in which they were concerned, the better prepared were they to avoid places and persons that might be dangerous to their safety, from arrest and other troubles. Several of the party expressed themselves very earnestly to the effect that the English newspapers would always be allowed to publish the fullest details of what the police knew in cases of robbery. On the other hand, they abused the French government in no measured terms for not allowing similar intelligence to be made public; one of the company asking in a very sarcastic tone and manner, whether that was republican liberty, which put a stop to the press telling people facts which had really happened. From what was said on this subject, it would seem that the gentlemen who follow the profession of those amongst whom I found myself that night look upon publicity in all police inquiries as of the greatest use to them.
In the course of the evening I got my friend who had brought me to the place to ask one of the party, in a sort of offhand manner, whether he and his friends were not afraid of a detective officer coming amongst them and giving information to the authorities of all he saw and heard. The question was purposely put in a rather loud tone of voice, and at a moment when there was a lull in the general conversation, so that others might hear it. For answer, there was returned a general laugh; and then a burly, somewhat elderly man—who, if I may judge from his talk, must have had considerable experience in the profession—spoke up.
‘Detectives!’ said he. ‘We don’t fear no detectives here, in London. We know them all in their plain clothes, just as well as if they wore uniform. They acts on the square with us. They don’t go a-making of themselves up to be what they ain’t. They don’t tell us what they are; but we know ’em well. Just let any one with eyes in his head go a-loafing round the police courts for a minute or two, and he’ll know every detective in London.’ After a short pause, this individual—who was evidently a sort of oracle amongst his fellows—continued: ‘There’s one thing I will say for the plain-clothes officers, you can’t “square” them; and it’s no use trying to do so. But then you have them in another way; you know them at first sight; and it would only be a duffer of the first water that would allow hisself to be taken in by them.’
To this my friend replied: ‘Well, there are people who get taken in by them.’
‘More fools they,’ was the rejoinder. ‘I don’t think you’ll find one of this ere company who has ever come to trouble through them, unless it were his own fault.’
As the night advanced, the persons who formed this assembly began to leave the place, singly and by twos and threes, bringing to a close the most extraordinary evening it was ever my lot to pass. On leaving the place, my friend linked his arm in mine, and took me through several narrow streets, none of which I recognised—crossing and turning very often—until all of a sudden we found ourselves on the south side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and in a few minutes more were in Fleet Street. My companion, knowing that I wrote for newspapers and periodicals, asked me, as a personal favour, not to give any account of the affair until at least a couple of years should have passed. This I promised to do. And as more than seven years have elapsed since I passed that evening amongst the agents of thieves, my promise has not been broken. As for the person who was my guide that night, I only saw him once or twice afterwards. He came to call on me in the winter of 1878, and told me he was about to sail for America, but would not be away more than four or five months. But from that day to this I have never heard a word about him, and cannot tell whether he is dead or alive.