"Do you mean to say you can't get any evidence whatever to go on?"
"No, Tuan."
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL DONALD MACKENZIE, THE AUTHOR.
From a Photograph.
"Then you and your detectives must be a lot of fools! In England a burglar or a murderer might be clever enough to hide all traces of his crime, but out here they are all coolies, and must leave no end of evidence which any officer who knows his work could easily follow up. If you can't do the simplest detective work, you and your men had better return to duty and leave your work to me. The next crime I will investigate myself. You can go."
I was Chief of Police of the native State of Sungei Ujong,[4] in the Malay Peninsula, and Detective-Sergeant Cassim stood rigidly at attention before me in my office. As I finished he saluted and left.
[4] Now combined with Jelebu and Negri Sembilan.
I was a fool—doubly a fool, for I had not only made a statement which I knew was wrong, but I had lost my temper. The Malay is dignified, if he is nothing else, and to lose one's temper with him is to lower one's own dignity, and that means lowering his respect.