The Barker's Dozen - Reminiscences of an Early Police Dog (22 page)

The little cat stopped for a few moments, obviously quite distraught. I lent forward and gently nuzzled her while softly woofing my concern. She steadied herself and, with an admirable strength, returned to her narrative.

‘I think that it was the threat to Sally, rather than to himself, that has cowed our pet. He put a few drops of Laudanum into some milk and gave it to her. This dose has been repeated whenever she has shown any signs of returning alertness.

‘O’Neil told us that at least two of his party would remain in the building at all times. They would be working in the cellar every night and would sleep in shifts during the day.

‘My pet would be chained to his bed at night and during the day could pursue his trade in the workroom. O’Neil would deal with any customers or tradesmen who arrived while claiming to be a new assistant.

‘I put up with it as long as I could, watching both Sally and my pet suffer until I realised that only I could save them. So yesterday I waited for my opportunity and slipped out of the shop. The local tom took me to the parliament who, after some discussion, sent me to you.

‘Can you help us?’

‘I will do whatever I can to help you.’ I was instantly rewarded when the little cat’s face lit up with renewed hope. ‘What are the men doing in the cellar?’

‘They seem to be excavating a human sized mouse hole in the cellar wall.’ The cat pondered for a while. ‘I don’t know what it is for but I have noticed that they are working quietly and always have a lookout who tells them to stop if anyone walks past.’

‘The first thing is for me to come and have a look in the cellar for myself,’ I decided. ‘I will only have one chance to tell my master and I need to have all the facts straight.’

‘But what happens if the bad men catch you?’ Canary meowed, ‘who could I trust to tell your master?’

‘If anything happens to me,’ I responded in a gruff voice deliberately playing to the melodrama of the moment, ‘Fielding will tell my master’s nephew everything and we can rely on his sense and discretion to resolve this problem.’

Fielding looked slightly rebellious for a moment then purred his assent. I must admit that I felt incredibly smug. I had finally manoeuvred him into an invidious position.

I arranged with Canary that I would arrive the following afternoon and wait outside the shop until a customer entered. By following the customer nonchalantly I should be able to make everyone assume that I belonged to the other party.

After the cats had left I returned to my nap: the following day was likely to be very busy and a wise dog always uses every opportunity for a good sleep, unless of course it clashes with food.

As normal the following morning your uncle took me to his office at Scotland Yard. It was my intention to wait until after we had shared our morning tea before quietly taking myself for a walk. I’d decided to wait for midmorning because I thought that the villains would probably be at their most passive just before lunch, although I must admit the thought of my master having to eat all the biscuits did influence my decision; a good dog always puts his master’s happiness first.

It was a good thing that I waited because Sergeant Allen brought my master a message from the officer running a station house near to the clockmaker’s shop. Apparently a man resembling the chief suspect in a particularly vicious murder of a pawnbroker had been serendipitously arrested at a cheap hotel in that district.

I therefore was able to travel across town in a Hansom rather than walking. On arriving at the station I decided to accompany my master into the building, as I wanted to see the man we had been hunting most diligently for myself. Unfortunately, the visit produced nothing positive. The suspect was perfectly innocent and just had the misfortune of looking untrustworthy. To add to my disapproval there were no biscuits with the tea.

As we left the police station I waited until my master was engaged in flagging down a Hansom then I deliberately turned and walked off down the road.

I had only gone about ten yards before my master called me and I faked deafness while breaking into a trot.

‘Snuffles, come here! Now!’ my master shouted in rather terse voice from some distance behind me, and I was just congratulating myself on an easy escape when he called out again. ‘Constable, grab my dog please.’

I looked up to see a young, burly and probably fast constable bearing down on me. As his hand dropped towards my collar, I broke into a run knowing that I could easily out distance any human. Rather than dropping behind wheezing like a punctured bellows the blighter managed to keep up.  Not only was he pacing me but also the blighter was calling to other pedestrians to ‘stop that dog.’

I knew that I could outrun him eventually but there were far too many people making grabs for my collar so I took a sharp right into an alleyway, pursued by the fleetest of the pedestrians, all no doubt hoping for some financial reward for catching me.

A barrow loaded with fruit and vegetables was being pushed up the alley from the opposite end. It was apparent that I could gallop past it but my larger pursuers would have to slow. Once past the obstruction I could quickly lose the field.

‘I don’t know what you’ve done’, the man pushing the barrow called as I shot past. ‘But if the Peelers are after you, you’re alright with me.’ With that he made a feint at my collar and in doing so jammed the cart across the alleyway, causing the constable to collide with it. I trotted away with the sound of an altercation over the upset produce echoing from the alley walls.

This must be the most embarrassing moment in my career as a police dog. If Punch ever gets hold of this incident I will be a laughing stock everywhere. However, as my mother used to say an offered biscuit should never be refused.

I arrived outside the clockmaker’s shop about five minutes later and settled down to wait for a customer to arrive. A faint meow caught my attention and I looked up at the window to see Canary sitting among the clocks. She twitched her ears and then vanished back into the shop.

As I waited, I looked round the area. The shops and houses were all neatly kept and showed a level of prosperity although no real riches. Some were like the clockmaker’s shop, neat but slightly shabby. I could not see anything that would justify the amount of effort the villains seemed to be making.

The road I was in paralleled a much more prosperous thoroughfare and I determined that on my way home I would walk along it to see which buildings backed onto the clockmaker’s shop.

I hadn’t been waiting very long before a rather busy woman approached the shop carrying a parcel in her arms. As she came up, I went to the door and whined softly. The woman smiled at me and held the door open so I could precede her into the building.

The sound of the doorbell summoned a dapper looking man into the shop, and the woman seeing him approached like a frigate under full sail.

‘Young man,’ she began, in a voice that would brook no interruption. ‘I am most put out, indeed I am. I came into this shop last week and gave you my mother’s clock for Mr Cartwright to repair.’

As the good lady handed her package to the assistant, I dodged round the counter and through the door into the back of the shop.

‘I collected it only yesterday and the chimes don’t work properly.’ The woman’s voice rose to an impressive volume that easily covered any slight sounds I might make. ‘My mother had a quick look and says there is some type of paper jammed into the mechanism. If I pay good money…’

I saw Canary waiting for me and followed her through an open door and down a steep staircase into the cellar; a turn in the stairs finally cut off the diatribe behind me.

The shop had smelt of sickness and fear compounded with smells of wood, glue, oil and potato soup. The cellar on the other paw smelt of damp earth and sweat with a faint tang of something I now know to be dynamite.

The cellar was lit by a faint light that came through a couple of small dirty windows high up on the back wall, below them the dark mouth of a low narrow tunnel yawned. Earth and spoil had been piled against the front wall of the cellar, easily filling half the available space. Several packing cases had been pushed together to form platforms on which two men were sleeping.

I crept down the rest of the stairs and into the cellar. I had to find out where the tunnel ran but the closer I got to it, the more it resembled a mouth waiting to swallow me. I told myself not to be a silly pup and walked into the excavation.

There was no light but trusting to my ears and nose, I managed to negotiate the tunnel, which was so low that at times the roof brushed against my back, with relative ease. The tunnel sloped slightly downwards and after a short distance opened out into some type of small chamber. The chemical smell was more apparent here and I soon sniffed it down to its source; a box full of short sticks wrapped in straw. Knowing that they might be important I decided to take one to show my master.

I had reached the top of the stairs when I heard a small gasping cry from a room towards the back of the building.

‘Shall I kill the dog, Mr O’Neil?’ A cold voice asked and my heart fell.

‘No Sean. We need her to ensure our host’s further co-operation.’ A more cultivated, but infinitely colder man replied with a cruel sarcasm, ‘anyway the poor dog didn’t write the note we just found jammed in the clock and I think the guilty should suffer.’

‘What are you going to do then?’ There was an air of gloating anticipation in the first voice.

‘Nothing much,’ O’Neil replied. ‘I think I’ll just cut off the end of a finger, just so he knows I mean what I say.’

Beside me, Canary gave a small shocked meow and glancing at her I saw her claws extend.

‘Not now, little one,’ I spoke reassuringly. ‘This is dog’s work. When I’ve finished they won’t be interested in hurting your human.’

I looked round the doorjamb to see a middle-aged man struggling against a tough, labouring type who was trying to lay his victim’s hand flat on a table.  The dapper man, O’Neil, stood with his back to the door a large vicious knife dangling loosely in his right hand.

On the other side of the room a sash window was propped about a quarter open and seemed to look out on a dingy yard. I needed a distraction so I threw the dynamite, as one would toss a dead rat, over the head of O’Neil and, to my complete amazement, watched it fly straight through the window: when good luck breaks cover you should always seize it quickly lest it escapes you.

I threw myself towards O’Neil and bit him very hard just below the back of the knee. It was a bite to be proud of; I felt my teeth shear through trousers, skin and flesh until they grated on bone. He screamed, the sound shocking in that small room and, straightening suddenly, overbalanced backwards before falling through the door into the passage, his cruel knife flying from his hand.

I am not a terrier and know that when you are outnumbered it is better to bite and run rather than just keep savaging your first target. I gathered myself and jumped for the window. It was a tight fit, but I managed to squeeze through but not before something heavy cracked down on my right hip and I fell into the rough yard outside.

‘Get that dog,’ I heard O’Neil scream, his voice distorted into a pained falsetto. ‘It had a name tag. I want to know who owns it.’

‘You want us to bring the dog?’ a new voice asked, somewhat sleepily.

‘No, you fool, just the tag. Leave the dog in a gutter somewhere.’ The voice paused, then continued. ‘I’ll give a guinea to whichever one of you brings me its tail.’

To stay was to die! I snatched up the dynamite and looked around. A gate, which was fortunately ajar, gave onto a narrow alleyway. I hobbled towards it on three legs because my right rear leg seemed to have been paralysed by the blow I had received.

There was only one thing to do and that was run. Dogs can run quite well on only three legs but we do lose a bit of speed and by the time I reached the end of the alley two of the toughs were bearing down on me. Thinking about it now, I instinctively ran for my own territory rather than for the nearest police station. By now I was tired of being chased through London. Even though I was faster than the men my advantage was wasted because I had to keep dodging all the well-meaning busybodies who have nothing better to do than attempt to stop a fleeing dog.

By the time I reached the park I was just about exhausted. I was trying to reach the water, hoping that I could outdistance them by swimming across when I heard a voice calling me. I looked up and to my incredulous delight saw Miss Fraser. Calling on my last reserves of strength, I ran to her and then turned at bay standing to her right.

Miss Fraser was magnificent, although it was obvious that she was scared I doubt if many humans would have sensed her fear. After a short altercation one of the thugs struck her on the side of the head with his stick and as she fell readied himself for another more telling blow. I forgot the pain in my hip and launched myself for his right arm. For the second time that day I had the intense satisfaction of administering a well-deserved bite.  It wasn’t as good as my first attempt as the villain was wearing a thick jacket but I had to go for the right arm.

This was a case where I felt it was better not to let go, and as the bard says ‘emulate the actions of the terrier.’  The man dropped his stick and tried to shake me off. This isn’t a good idea because all it does it make the bite worse. He was spinning me in a circle when I heard a shout and saw a horse galloping towards me. At that moment I fell off and landed rather awkwardly.