The Lazy Detective

By George Dilnot.

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I

“And remember, Labar, you don’t bluff me.” The Chief Constable, who had been through the game himself, tapped the string of figures that lay upon his desk with an aggressive forefinger. “You’re lazy—damned lazy. If things don’t clear up in your division in the next month or so you can count on something happening. That’s all. Think it over.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the other, with the smooth suavity of a man who had received a compliment, and swung on velvet toes from the room.

After all, what was the use of arguing? Divisional Detective Inspector Labar was under no illusions about himself. He was lazy. All Scotland Yard knew it. Particularly did Winter, Chief Constable of the Criminal Investigation Department know it, for in some sort Labar was a protégé of his. Yet that shrewd old veteran reckoned that even the quality of indolence had its uses. It could make a brilliant man concentrate fiercely on his work, in order to save time for his own purposes. The amount of time taken by a detective on an individual job is largely a matter on which his superiors must accept his word. Some men slog laboriously, while others get their results quickly. In minor positions there is always someone around to see that the work is done.

All this, however, does not apply in the same degree to a detective inspector. Such a one gives, more often than he receives, orders. As an executive Labar felt himself a failure. Well, well, a man must have a little time for golf.

A heavy hand fell with mathematical accuracy between his shoulder blades, and he flung round with a delicate shudder.

“One of these days, Moreland, someone’s going to slap you hard on the wrist, slog you on the jaw, and kick you where it hurts most. You’re too boisterous for the society of gentlemen.”

Moreland, of the Flying Squad, grinned cheerfully. “Behold the infant phenomenon of Grape Street, as the apostle of gloom,” he said, walking round Labar with mock awe. “Behold his shiny boots and well-creased trousers, and mark his creased forehead and frowning countenance. No, don’t speak. Let me apply my well-known powers of deduction.” He put his hand to his brow. “He has—yes he has been on the carpet.”

A slow rueful smile broke on Labar’s face. “You guessed it,” he said. “If you want promotion there’s the job of divisional inspector at Grape Street liable to be vacant some time. Better write out your application.”

Moreland’s levity vanished. “The old man’s bitten you as bad as that? Cheer up, and pull yourself together. Come and tell papa all about it.” He pulled Labar into an adjoining room, adjusted himself on a tall stool and lit a pipe. “Shoot,” he ordered.

Harry Labar shrugged his shoulders. “There’s nothing to it,” he declared. “Winter says things are too loose in the division. I’ve got to tighten them up, or—”

“The shelf, eh?” Moreland eyed his friend whimsically. “That’ll be a new record for you. The youngest man to be promoted divisional inspector, and the youngest divisional inspector to retire. Well, why don’t you tighten them up?”

“Blah, all blah. Easy talk. Look here, Moreland, my percentages of unsolved crime are up—but you know why. Curse it all, Winter knows as well as I do that Larry Hughes is operating in my district. No one, not even the old man himself, has ever pinned anything to Larry. I’m to be the goat. Why didn’t they give me an easy division when they promoted me, instead of the wealthiest in London, infested by all the slickest crooks in the world? What right has the old man to be sore at me?”

Moreland slid from his stool and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Listen to me, Harry. They gave you the job because they thought you could do it. To blazes with your golf handicap. Now you go and take a pill and get on with it.” He pushed the other gently from the room.

To few other men than Moreland would Labar have confided his troubles. He passed swiftly out of the little back door from the C.I.D. headquarters, dodging the Assistant Commissioner with some skill, for he felt that that official might be no less emphatic, if more urbane, than the Chief Constable on the state of crime in the West End.

His mind was focused upon Larry Hughes. Larry was a gentleman who had never been in a criminal court in his life—a sleek, cultivated man about town, with a taste in literature and art, and enough money to run his own steam yacht and a racing stud. His life was apparently open to the world, his character to all seeming flawless, impeccable. Any headstrong police officer who had ventured to put a public slur on Larry’s character, by hauling him to a dungeon cell, would have very promptly found himself with a suit for heavy damages on his hands.

Yet to Labar, as to many men in the police circles of the world, it was certain knowledge that Larry Hughes was the most adroit and intelligent crime organiser in London, or for the matter of that anywhere. It was certain but utterly unprovable.

There are half a dozen men in London, another half a dozen in New York, three in Paris, a couple in Amsterdam, and a few more knocking about other capitals of the world, who run crime on the principles of big business. Through many intermediaries there filters to them much knowledge which they have the means to turn to profit. These are eclectic in their enterprises, but in general they are receivers. They will organise and finance a burglary, a forgery, or a holdup, but they keep well in the background. The casual thief has never heard of them; even the big professional crook frequently has only a dim conception of their identity. The loot never reaches them in any tangible and identifiable shape. They have their agents, and their tools, and many of them die in an atmosphere of eminent respectability.

Among this class the most audacious, the most ingenious, was Larry Hughes. Labar had little doubt that, if one really got to the bottom of things in his division, half the professional crime would have shown Larry’s finger in the pie. Either Larry must lay off of his own volition—an unlikely event—or some method must be found of putting a spoke in his wheel. Harry Labar did not avoid the feeling that the task was likely to prove a man’s size job.

He had reached Cockspur Street when the thing happened. Even if his mind had been less preoccupied, it is likely that he would have failed to notice the big touring car that edged itself through the traffic towards him. Not until it had swept close to the kerb, and he saw the girl leaning from the near side, did he realise that it held any significance for him. A wisp of fair hair had fallen over her forehead, and she brushed it back with a slim gloved hand. Harry Labar, although his colleagues held him doomed to bachelordom, had an eye for a pretty girl and he noticed her with subconscious approval as the car drew near.

Almost mechanically it dawned on him that her hand was stretched to him from the now slowly moving car.