STRIP SEARCH

by James Lincoln Warren

In Saturday’s Los Angeles Times, there was a three inch column on page AA2 (in “LATEXTRA”, the section following the front page section which supposedly contains late-breaking news) stating that the Tribune Company, which owns the Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles TV station KTLA TV (which began operations in 1942 as “W6XYZ”, the first television station west of the Mississippi), after having consulted with its creditors, has delayed presenting its revised bankruptcy plan to the court. Most of you out there probably aren’t following the story, which began back in 2008, and which has recently been made more interesting by the fact that one of the proposals for saving the company involves having former Disney CEO Michael Eisner take over. Whatever happens, the Tribune saga has been held out for the last several years as evidence of the daily newspaper’s demise.

Even after having changed corporate masters and severely slashing its staff and budget over the last several years, the Times is still hæmorrhaging money. Its subscriber base, which at one time was well over a million, is now less than seven hundred thousand—and this without any serious print competition, since arch-rival Hearst’s Herald-Examiner folded (please excuse the pun) over twenty years ago.

Sigh.

I don’t know if this newspaper will survive or become yet another casualty of our post literate culture. I can tell you that although there’s still a lot worth reading in it, it certainly isn’t the excellent L.A. Times I remember from when I first moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s anymore. I’m pretty sure it will hang on a while longer, but if it goes, it’s going to take a lot of things down with it.

Like comic strips. News I can get anywhere in this digital age, but reading comics online just ain’t the same. It doesn’t smell the same, you don’t get ink on your fingers, and you can’t take in the whole collection of strips at once. You can’t fold it up your netbook and shove it in your pocket, then toss it away when you’re done.

Not that I’m all that crazy about most contemporary strips these days, but I learned to read by perusing Sunday comics pages and comic books, so they fill an important place in my heart. When I lived in Brussels during my junior high school years, one of the things I most coveted was the American comics in the International Herald-Tribune.

One of the things that has mostly disappeared from the comics pages is strips that aren’t gag oriented. About the only daily strip in the Times that still tells stories is “Rex Morgan, M.D.” — there’s also “9 Chickweed Lane”, but that’s still primarily a humor strip, although it has lately metamorphozed almost into a post modern “Gasoline Alley”.

There aren’t any detectives at all.

Remember Dick Tracy? Or Rip Kirby? How about Kerry Drake? If you are not, ahem, of a certain age, you probably won’t remember the last two at all.

And who could forget Secret Agent X-9? Well, just about everybody, I admit, although he survived from his inception in 1934 until last year. What really makes that particular comic strip noteworthy were the two guys who wrote and drew it during its first year: Dashiell Hammett and Alex Raymond, of Flash Gordon fame, who also gave us Rip Kirby, mentioned above, although when I read that excellent strip every day in the late 60s and early 70s, it was drawn by the marvelous John Prentice. (Raymond had been killed in an auto accident in 1956.)

And not just cops and private eyes. There were reporters. Yeah, OK, I hated Dale Messick’s Brenda Starr, who first appeared in 1940 and is still with us, because despite the redheaded bombshell’s occasional forays into crime, it was essentially an adventurous romance strip. But Steve Roper, on the other hand, was a true crime-fighting investigative reporter, and his buddy Mike Nomad was every inch the tough unlicensed P.I.-type epitomized by Travis McGee and Matthew Scudder — although the evolution of that particular strip is a strange tale. It started as a humorous Western.

Like so many newspapers, most of these strips are long gone, and there has been nothing to replace them. But wouldn’t it be cool if detectives came back to the comics page?

If there are any comics pages.

DEATH and DESTRUCTION

by Leigh Lundin

So much crime news flooded the network this week, I couldn’t fit in more than a taste. Some are very serious, but I’ll try to lighten the load.

Corporate Death Threats

Arizona is becoming weirder by the week, no longer a place for odd-tasting ice tea in pretty packaging. Denied a liquor permit to open a bar, one man plotted death and destruction at the 2008 SuperBowl. After buying an assault rifle and ammunition, he wrote letters to major newspapers and a couple of web sites about his plans: "I will sacrifice your children upon the altar of your excess."

Setting aside he writes better than some authors and that booze and ammo don’t make great partners, he turned himself into police a half hour before doing the deed. Score one for him.

For the threats, he received a year in lockup. However the appeals court decided a death threat against a corporation is not a crime– threats are only considered crimes if directed at specific individuals. Score two for the dude, zero for common sense.

The ruling strikes me as strange. Another Arizonian, Tim McVeigh, targeted a building rather than individuals. That toll: 168 people, 19 children, ~700 injuries.

FaceBook Hit List

FaceBook death threats are nothing new, but one burst into reality when the first three teens on a list of one hundred were gunned down two weeks ago, ages 16, 17, and 19 (or 15, 16, 17, according to other reports). Originally, an unknown party posted the list with 69 boys and a few days later added 31 teen girls.

Thus far, no one has come up with a theory that makes sense. Score zero for common sense.

Ohio News (and Mystery Clues)

Another execution is imminent in Dick Stodghill’s old stomping grounds and once again many– including local newspapers and professionals– believe the evidence indicates the man, Kevin Keith, is either innocent or unfairly tried.

After a couple of days reading evidence, I’m far from convinced of innocence, not like, say Georgia’s Troy Davis case. My meter indicates maybe 50-50, but any doubt or unfairness should give us pause when a life is at stake and it seems likely the trial was tainted.

As mentioned in comments last week, the 1996 federal AEDPA act cut off many federal judges’ remedies for unjust convictions and even proof of a demonstrably wrongful conviction of an innocent person is no basis for relief in a habeas case. As a result, the case was dumped in the lap of a clemency hearing.

Clemency boards are often accused of rubber stamping convictions. The Ohio board did little to offset that view, wrapping up their summary with the statement "we believe that considerable deference should be afforded the findings of the jury and trial…"

On the one hand, an impressive array of supporters argue misidentification, pointing to another suspect not considered by the police, Rodney Melton. Kevin Keith’s supporters assert investigative error (and perjury in one instance), prosecutorial misconduct, a non-existent witness, and unheard witnesses who place the accused elsewhere. No personal evidence and little physical evidence can be tied to Keith, which includes tire tracks that may have been misidentified. There are charges of a contaminated jury, accusations leveled about jury threats but also improper ties, such as a juror who babysat for lead detectives on the case. Finally, one of the victims doesn’t think Keith was the perpetrator.

A large body of expert testimony was considered and discounted or disregarded by the board regarding eye witnesses and that memory tends to fade with time rather than radically improve as seems to happen in so many critical cases.

On the other side, I agree some of the prosecution problems can be explained. I give the police captain accused of perjury a sizable benefit of the doubt. I don’t think he lied at all, but made a simple mistake in interpreting a nurse’s surname, the so-called non-existent witness.

While the captain shouldn’t be accused of perjury, in a death penalty case tiny details matter and an error like that shouldn’t be used against the defense.

To me, the most intriguing physical evidence was a partial license plate number embedded in a snowbank by what was believed to be the getaway car. The car left behind the numbers 043. Police discovered the grandfather of one of Keith’s girlfriends owned a car with a tag ending in 043. Prosecutors said "open and shut" and the jury agreed. Guilty.

But …

If this happened in a novel, you wouldn’t believe it, but it wasn’t enough to sway either jury or board. Remember the alternate suspect mentioned above?

His license plate also contains 043.

If you’re looking for a job…

The DEA is looking for native speakers of ebonics.

Really. I wouldn’t lie to you. They should either hire June Cleaver from Airplane or score zero for jivin’ us.

LESSER EVILS

by John M. Floyd

Rob Lopresti’s column about heroes and their sidekicks the other day got me thinking. It’s true that the best Kirks need good Spocks, or Hawks or Tontos or Watsons or Samwise Gamgees, as the case may be. But let’s be fair, here: the villains need interesting helpers as well.

I also began wondering what the advantage could be, to the writer and the story, of giving the villain a sidekick. I came up with several:

• the villain can reveal, via dialogue with his Number Two, important plot facts or character traits that might otherwise be hard to disclose;
• the more allies the villain has, the worse the odds are against the hero;
• comparisons and conflicts between the sidekick and his boss can confirm for the reader/viewer how much more evil and threatening the head villain is;
• a sidekick can provide skills the villain might not possess; and
• an expendable sidekick (few of them survive until the last reel) can “test” the hero before the hero’s final confrontation with Villain #1.

Buddies for the baddies

Sometimes villains’ sidekicks (henchmen?) are even more sinister than their superiors. I thought From Russia With Love’s Rosa Klebb was more creepy than her archvillain boss, and in Tom Rob Smith’s novel Child 44 a subordinate named Visili Nikitin was one of the most evil characters I’ve ever read about. On the big screen, one who comes to mind is soulless killer Charlie Prince (Ben Foster), who in the remake of 3:10 to Yuma was far more ruthless than his gang leader Ben Wade (Russell Crowe).

At times, though not often, the “other” bad guy can actually steal the show. Hannibal Lecter wasn’t the only villain in The Silence of the Lambs; the main plot, investigation, and manhunt was focused on serial killer Jaime Gumb. But guess which one everybody remembers. Another example is the silent and loyal Oddjob, who — silly as he was — made more of a lasting impression on me than Auric Goldfinger did, in both the novel and the film. And I’d be willing to bet that more moviegoers remember squinty-eyed, hawk-nosed actor Lee Van Cleef, one of the three outlaw sidekicks in the film High Noon, than either of his two buddies or his boss Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), even though Miller was the main villain of both the movie and its Tex Ritter theme song.

One of my favorite sidekicks was the murderous but cheerful Mexican bandit in Hombre. I can still hear him calling out, from his hiding place after being wounded, “Heeey, Hombre, you put a hole in meeee. I never had a bellyache like this since I’m a leetle boyee.” His character added a touch of humor to a deadly serious story, but in more lighthearted movies plenty of villains had comic-relief sidekicks: Otis (Ned Beatty) in Superman, Max (Peter Falk) in The Great Race, Ralph (Danny DeVito) in Romancing the Stone, etc. Playing a comedy villain’s sidekick is good duty– nothing truly bad ever happens to those guys.

The facts about malefactors

The criminals with lower billings are of course not always sidekicks; sometimes they’re killers hired by the villain (Billy Drago in The Untouchables), junior members of a team (Danny Glover in Witness, Gary Busey in Under Siege, Alexander Godunov in Die Hard), or just other evil characters unconnected to the villain (Doug Hutchison in The Green Mile).

There are plenty of variations on this subject. I can think of one novel where a villain’s sidekick (the pyromaniac “Trashcan Man” in The Stand) was the final undoing of the villain, one film where the villain’s accomplice (William Hurt in Body Heat) was also the protagonist, one where a villain’s employee (Ben Johnson in Shane) turned away from the Dark Side and helped the hero, and even one where the hero’s sidekick (Alan Hale Jr. in The Eiger Sanction) turned out to be the villain. Hey, if it works, it works.

Aiding and abetting

Who are some of your favorite bad-guy sidekicks? I particularly liked Pete Postlethwaite in The Usual Suspects, Jack Weston in both Wait Until Dark and the first Thomas Crown Affair, Daryl Hannah in both Blade Runner and Kill Bill, and Chuck Connors (actually the villain’s son rather than his sidekick) in The Big Country– but I’ll probably think of a dozen more as soon as I send this column off to press.

I should mention here that the lesser villain role has its disadvantages. Let’s face it, if you get that part, you’re admitting you’re not quite good-looking enough or sinister enough or interesting enough for the top slot. And, as I said earlier, you’ll probably die an unpleasant death before the end of the story. (Remember Jabba the Hutt? There’s not much dignity in being strangled at the end of the first scene, by the young lady the hero’s trying to rescue.)

If you like sidekicks, try out for the buddy of the good guy instead: you’ll get more respect. Unless, of course, you’re a Wookiee.

OBJECT POVERTY

by Steven Steinbock

I can’t really blame anyone for dropping the Ms of the end of whom. I may get a momentary sense of unease. But then I remind myself that there are bigger fish to fry. Besides, whom has fallen so far into disuse that when I speak a sentence that calls for it I find myself pausing to double check. Real-time oral proofreading is no way to carry a conversation.

Perfectly good patterns do sometimes fall into disuse. I think it’s a shame that the Second-Person Plural pronoun ye has disappeared from English. Ironically, it’s only in the Southern states of the US that ye can still hear a plural second-person in the form of you all or the contraction y’all. What makes it ironic is that American not living in Southern states generally look down their noses at the form, thinking it the sign of poor education, when it is, in fact, a smarter use of pronouns than what the rest of us use.

I’ve noticed an interesting pattern in which object pronouns are misused. There’s probably a name for it, and perhaps some grammarian reading this will kindly provide it. But I’m stuck just trying to describe it. Here it is: we sometimes choose pronouns based on their location in a sentence or clause rather than on its function. I’m sure I’m guilty of it.

Here’s how it works: we are so accustomed to the pattern SUBJECT VERB OBJECT (“he kissed her” “she slapped him” “we ignored them” etc.) that we mistakenly assume that any pronoun near the end of a sentence ought to take the object form.

I’m reading a light thriller written in the early 1940s, They Tell No Tales by Manning Coles. (It’s an excellent book from a wonderful series, by the way). I came across a phrase that felt awkward. But after reading it a few times, I realized that it was correct, and that I was just unaccustomed to it.

To set up the stage, the hero, Hambledon, is talking with his friend and a policeman about a man they suspect of being a spy, but who has covered his tracks so well that they can’t prove it.

“It’s a pity,” agreed Elliot, “but he gets away with it this time, if it was he.”

It was the last word in that passage that derailed me. If it was he. It would seem (to me, anyway) that the phrase would read if it was him. My guess is that most of us would, without giving it a second thought, use him rather than he. But then most of us (including me) would be wrong. The he in question is the subject of Elliot and Hambledon’s suspicion, not the object. But because the pronoun is the final word in the sentence, or perhaps because it comes at the end of an if clause, we instinctively think it should be the object.

But that brings up another question: should the verb in that passage have been was or were? I thought that in the subjunctive mood, we should always use the verb were no matter who the person is. Would “if it were he” have been more correct?

Now I’ve completely confused myself.

If any readers can enlighten me as to the history of the subjunctive were rule, or if you’d like to share any odd or awkward verbal patterns, jump right in.

BE MY FRIEND?

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

“Even though we’ve changed and we’re all finding our own place in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smile spreads across our face, we’ll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we’re not all still friends.” — posted by many, many people on Facebook with no one claiming or denying they actually wrote this quote.

I don’t think it’s just me noticing Facebook has turned into quite a phenomenon. Most people are on the social network, even if they don’t “use” it often. What I find overwhelming is the number of people talking about books. Of course, a large amount of my cyber friends on Facebook are writers, but many are good ol’ plain everyday readers like us. And they talk about the books they are reading. How cool is that?

Nary a day goes by that someone doesn’t post what page of a certain book they are reading and when they’re done, we get either a thumbs up or down reaction via words on the screen. I like this. It’s like being in a very large book club, except without rules. Especially that we are all reading the same book at the same time.

I like when friends ask for suggestions for their next book to read, too. Word-of-mouth has always been the best advertisement and it’s always good to have a recommendation from a good friend before you buy anything.

Isn’t it interesting to find so many people still enjoy solitary reading? Taking a mind adventure via the pages of a novel is such a lovely break in the hurry, hurry, hurry routine of the 21st Century lifestyle.

Writers mention their problems with stalled plots, editing and finding the right agent — or any agent — to look at their work. There is much encouragement and sage advice being shared. I like that, too. Nothing is worse than feeling alone when the writing isn’t going smoothly. It’s nice to know others have been there and made it through and we can, too. I like that though we seem to be a nation of “It’s all about me” people, that isn’t the reality for the most of us.

We may have been all caught up in our own little worlds, but when 9/11 happened, we pulled together. Not just as a country, but as individuals throughout the globe, horrified how a few can harm so many so easily when it is so unnecessary.

A few of my friends are holdouts to social networks, but are relying on the old tried-and-true methods of marketing. I’m here to say: Facebook has proved itself as a valuable marketing tool, too. I like that it is easy to notify so many people by a few keystrokes about a conference, a new publication or other event. I like that charities are saving money on advertising (wouldn’t you rather the money go to the charity than an ad exec’s account?—That is, unless you are the ad exec )

I like that my Facebook friend asked about having a short story idea and wanting to turn it into a screenplay and if that was possible. I commented that she should write the short story first and see what happens. Many short stories are made into movies.

I also use Facebook to tell people about such great blogs as Criminal Brief where they can find like-minded people discussing writing and reading short mystery fiction. I’m hoping CB is becoming a phenomenon too . I’d really like that.

TRYING NOT TO WRITE

by Rob Lopresti

So here we are in Copenhagen. This is a bit of a surprise.

Not that we got on the wrong plane or anything like that, but Denmark was never on the to-do list, like Israel or Ireland have been. But the opportunity came up, unexpectedly, and like the sophisticated world travelers that we are, my wife and I, after months of panic attacks, decided to take the plunge.

And take the wheels. Copenhagen is one of the world’s great cycling cities. Flat all over and with real bike lanes that are separated both visually and physically from the cars and pedestrians. Very clever design and—

Whoa! Where did that truck come from? Intersections are still tricky.

Gotta stop composing blog entries while pedaling down unfamiliar city streets.

It is a great temptation for a writer to take any opportunity when his body is occupied and his brain is relatively free, such as biking, or mowing the lawn, or doing dishes, to start composing, or editing. If you’re a songwriter you find fragments of lyrics floating through your skull, begging to be pieced together. If you’re working on a story, scenes start to show on the big screen between your ears. And if you—

Red light! They take their bike lanes so seriously here that at some corners there are miniature traffic lights hanging on the side of the main ones, just for bicycles. The lights mostly seem to be there to give bikers a head start over right-turning cars. Ain’t that cool? But they are something else to pay attention to.

Here we are by Tivoli Gardens, the grand old amusement park. And there is City Hall, with its statue of Hans Christian Andersen, which he posed for and approved.

Andersen was a working class boy who wound up famous and knighted. May it happen to every great writer.

Another great Danish author of the time was Søren Kierkegaard. His statue is one of many that ring the Marble Church.

Not surprisingly, the father of existentialism and the father of the Little Mermaid were not best buddies. Too bad, really. Imagine if they had collaborated. Fear and Loathing Thumbelina. Being and Ducklingness.

And speaking of being, where are we now? It would be nice if street signs showed up nearly as often as streets. It’s as easy to get lost here as it is to get distracted.

Speaking of distractions, the night we arrived, still wrestling with jet lag, I snapped awake in the middle of the night with a story idea. I had the first paragraph, the names of two main characters, and a good idea of what happened next.

So as I ride around this beautiful city it is easy to find myself pondering my plot, set in Victorian London, instead of Copenhagen’s artificial lakes and ancient fortresses. The old Buddhist line “Be Here Now” comes to mind.

Uh oh. Speaking of which, my wife is getting pretty far ahead of me. Better catch up. These three-speed rentals are not exactly what we are used to.

The Botanical Garden is a beautiful, peaceful place. We park in front of it and open the water bottles. I pull out my notebook and write:

Blog

Trying Not To Write

Copenhagen, bicycles.

There. That’s a load off my mind.

My favorite crime stories always involve the application of justice, and the more ironic it is, the better I like it. This little gem was written by the creator of Jeeves and Wooster in 1910. —JLW

MISUNDERSTOOD

by P. G. Wodehouse

      The profession of Mr. James (“Spider1”) Buffin was pocket-picking. His hobby was revenge. James had no objection to letting the sun go down on his wrath. Indeed, it was after dark that he corrected his numerous enemies most satisfactorily. It was on a dark night, while he was settling a small score against one Kelly, a mere acquaintance, that he first fell foul of Constable Keating, whose beat took him through the regions which James most frequented.
     James, having “laid for” Mr. Kelly, met him in a murky side-street down Clerkenwell2 way, and attended to his needs with a sand-bag.
     It was here that Constable Keating first came prominently into his life. Just as James, with the satisfying feeling that his duty had been done, was preparing to depart, Officer Keating, who had been a distant spectator of the affair, charged up and seized him.
     It was intolerable that he should interfere in a purely private falling-out between one gentleman and another, but there was nothing to be done. The policeman weighed close upon fourteen stone, and could have eaten Mr. Buffin. The latter, inwardly seething, went quietly, and in due season was stowed away at the Government’s expense for the space of sixty days.
     Physically, there is no doubt that his detention did him good. The regular hours and the substitution of bread and water for his wonted diet improved his health thirty per cent. It was mentally that he suffered. His was one of those just-as-good cheap-substitute minds, incapable of harbouring more than one idea at a time, and during those sixty days of quiet seclusion it was filled with an ever-growing resentment against Officer Keating. Every day, as he moved about his appointed tasks, he brooded on his wrongs. Every night was to him but the end of another day that kept him from settling down to the serious business of Revenge. To be haled to prison for correcting a private enemy with a sand-bag—that was what stung. In the privacy of his cell he dwelt unceasingly on the necessity for revenge. The thing began to take on to him the aspect almost of a Holy Mission, a sort of Crusade.

     The days slipped by, bringing winter to Clerkenwell, and with it Mr. Buffin. He returned to his old haunts one Friday night, thin but in excellent condition. One of the first acquaintances he met was Officer Keating. The policeman, who had a good memory for faces, recognised him, and stopped.
     “So you’re out, young feller?” he said genially. When not in the active discharge of his professional duties the policeman was a kindly man. He bore Mr. Buffin no grudge.
     “Um,” said Mr. Buffin.
     “Feeling fine, eh?”
     “Um.”
     “Goin’ round to see some of the chaps and pass them the time of day, I shouldn’t wonder?”
     “Um.”
     “Well, you keep clear of that lot down in Frith Street3, young feller. They’re no good. And if you get mixed up with them, first thing you know, you’ll be in trouble again. And you want to keep out of that now.”
     “Um.”
     “If you never get into trouble,” said the policeman sententiously, “you’ll never have to get out of it.”
     “Um,” said Mr. Buffin. If he had a fault as a conversationalist, it was a certain tendency to monotony, a certain lack of sparkle and variety in his small-talk.
     Constable Keating, with a dignified but friendly wave of the hand, as one should say, “You have our leave to depart,” went on his way; while Mr. Buffin, raging, shuffled off in the opposite direction, thinking as hard as his limited mental equipment would allow him.
     His thoughts, which were many and confused, finally composed themselves into some order. He arrived at a definite conclusion, which was that if the great settlement was to be carried through successfully it must be done when the policeman was off duty. Till then he had pictured himself catching Officer Keating in an unguarded moment on his beat. This, he now saw, was out of the question. On his beat the policeman had no unguarded moments. There was a quiet alertness in his poise, a danger-signal in itself.
     There was only one thing for Mr. Buffin to do. Greatly as it would go against the grain, he must foregather with the man, win his confidence, put himself in a position where he would be able to find out what he did with himself when off duty.
     The policeman offered no obstacle to the move. A supreme self-confidence was his leading characteristic. Few London policemen are diffident, and Mr. Keating was no exception. It never occurred to him that there could be an ulterior motive behind Mr. Buffin’s advances. He regarded Mr. Buffin much as one regards a dog which one has had to chastise. One does not expect the dog to lie in wait and bite. Officer Keating did not expect Mr. Buffin to lie in wait and bite.
     So every day, as he strolled on his beat, there sidled up to him the meagre form of Spider Buffin. Every day there greeted him the Spider’s “Good-morning, Mr. Keating,” till the sight of Officer Keating walking solidly along the pavement with Spider Buffin shuffling along at his side, listening with rapt interest to his views on Life and his hints on Deportment, became a familiar spectacle in Clerkenwell.

     Mr. Buffin played his part well. In fact, too well. It was on the seventh day that, sidling along in the direction of his favourite place of refreshment, he found himself tapped on the shoulder. At the same moment an arm, linking itself in his, brought him gently to a halt. Beside him were standing two of the most eminent of the great Frith Street Gang, Otto the Sausage4 and Rabbit5 Butler. It was the finger of the Rabbit that had tapped his shoulder. The arm tucked in his was the arm of Otto the Sausage.
     “Hi, Spider,” said Mr. Butler, “Sid wants to see you a minute.”
     The Spider’s legs felt boneless. There was nothing in the words to alarm a man, but his practised ear had seemed to detect a certain unpleasant dryness in the speaker’s tone. Sid Marks, the all-powerful leader of the Frith Street Gang, was a youth whose company the Spider had always avoided with some care.
     The great Sid, seated in state at a neighbouring hostelry, fixed his visitor with a cold and questioning eye. Mr. Buffin looked nervous and interrogative. Mr. Marks spoke.
     “Your pal Keating pinched Porky Binns this mornin’,” said Sid.
     The Spider’s heart turned to water.
     “You and that slop,” observed Sid dreamily, “have been bloomin’ thick these days.”
     Mr. Buffin did not affect to misunderstand. Sid Marks was looking at him in that nasty way. Otto the Sausage was looking at him in that nasty way. Rabbit Butler was looking at him in that nasty way. This was an occasion where manly frankness was the quality most to be aimed at. To be misunderstood in the circles in which Mr. Buffin moved meant something more than the mere risk of being treated with cold displeasure.
     He began to explain with feverish eagerness.
     “Strike me, Sid,” he stammered, “it ain’t like that. It’s all right. Blimey, you don’t fink I’m a nark6?”
     Mr. Marks chewed a straw in silence.
     “I’m layin’ for him, Sid,” babbled Mr. Buffin. “That’s true. Strike me if it ain’t. I’m just tryin’ to find out where he goes when he’s off duty. He pinched me, so I’m layin’ for him.”
     Mr. Marks perpended. Rabbit Butler respectfully gave it as his opinion that it would be well to put Mr. Buffin through it. There was nothing like being on the safe side. By putting Mr. Buffin through it, argued Rabbit Butler, they would stand to win either way. If he had “smitched7” to Officer Keating about Porky Binns he would deserve it. If he had not—well, it would prevent him doing so on some future occasion. Play for safety, was Mr. Butler’s advice, seconded by Otto the Sausage. Mr. Buffin, pale to the lips, thought he had never met two more unpleasant persons.
     The Great Sid, having chewed his straw for a while in silence, delivered judgment. The prisoner should have the benefit of the doubt this time. His story, however unplausible, might possibly be true. Officer Keating undoubtedly had pinched him. That was in his favour.
     “You can hop it this time,” he said, “but if you ever do start smitchin’, Spider, yer knows what’ll happen.”
     Mr. Buffin withdrew, quaking.
     Matters had now come to a head. Unless he very speedily gave proof of his pure and noble intentions, life would become extremely unsafe for him. He must act at once. The thought of what would happen should another of the Frith Streeters be pinched before he, Mr. Buffin, could prove himself innocent of the crime of friendliness with Officer Keating, turned him cold.
     Fate played into his hands. On the very next morning Mr. Keating, all unsuspecting, asked him to go to his home with a message for his wife.
     “Tell her,” said Mr. Keating, “a newspaper gent has given me seats for the play to-night, and I’ll be home at a quarter to seven.”
     Mr. Buffin felt as Cromwell must have felt at Dunbar when the Scots left their stronghold on the hills and came down to the open plain.
     The winter had set in with some severity that year, and Mr. Buffin’s toes, as he stood in the shadows close to the entrance of the villa where Officer Keating lived when off duty, were soon thoroughly frozen. He did not dare to stamp his feet, for at any moment now the victim might arrive. And when the victim weighs fourteen stone, against the high priest’s eight and a half, it behooves the latter to be circumspect, if the sacrifice is to be anything like a success. So Mr. Buffin waited and froze in silence. It was a painful process, and he added it to the black score which already stood against Officer Keating. Never had his thirst for revenge been more tormenting. It is doubtful if a strictly logical and impartial judge would have held Mr. Keating to blame for the fact that Sid Marks’ suspicions (and all that those suspicions entailed) had fallen upon Mr. Buffin; but the Spider did so. He felt fiercely resentful against the policeman for placing him in such an unpleasant and dangerous position. As his thoughts ran on the matter, he twisted his fingers tighter round his stick.
     As he did so there came from down the road the brisk tramp of feet and a cheerful whistling of “The Wearing of the Green.” It is a lugubrious song as a rule, but, as rendered by Officer Keating returning home with theatre tickets, it had all the joyousness of a march-tune.
     Every muscle in Mr. Buffin’s body stiffened. He gripped his stick and waited. The road was deserted. In another moment. . ..
     And then, from nowhere, dark indistinct forms darted out like rats. The whistling stopped in the middle of a bar. A deep-chested oath rang out, and then a confused medley of sound, the rasping of feet, a growling almost canine, a sharp yelp, gasps, and over all the vast voice of Officer Keating threatening slaughter.
     For a moment Mr. Buffin stood incapable of motion. The thing had been so sudden, so unexpected. And then, as he realised what was happening, there swept over him in a wave a sense of intolerable injustice. It is not easy to describe his emotions, but they resembled most nearly those of an inventor whose patent has been infringed, or an author whose idea has been stolen. For weeks—and weeks that had seemed like years—he had marked down Officer Keating for his prey. For weeks he had tortured a mind all unused to thinking into providing him with schemes for accomplishing his end. He had outraged his nature by being civil to a policeman. He had risked his life by incurring the suspicions of Sid Marks. He had bought a stick. And he had waited in the cold till his face was blue and his feet blocks of ice. And now . . . now . . . after all this . . . a crowd of irresponsible strangers, with no rights in the man whatsoever probably, if the truth were known, filled with mere ignoble desire for his small change, had dared to rush in and jump his claim before his very eyes.
     With one passionate cry, Mr. Buffin, forgetting his frozen feet, lifted his stick, and galloped down the road to protect his property. . ..
     “That’s the stuff,” said a voice. “Pour some more into him, Jerry.”
     Mr. Buffin opened his eyes. A familiar taste was in his mouth. Somebody of liberal ideas seemed to be pouring whisky down his throat. Could this be Heaven? He raised his head, and a sharp pain shot through it. And with the pain came recollection. He remembered now, dimly, as if it had all happened in another life, the mad rush down the road, the momentary pause in the conflict, and then its noisy renewal on a more impressive scale. He remembered striking out left and right with his stick. He remembered the cries of the wounded, the pain of his frozen feet, and finally the crash of something hard and heavy on his head.
     He sat up, and found himself the centre of a little crowd. There was Officer Keating, dishevelled but intact; three other policemen, one of whom was kneeling by his side with a small bottle in his hand; and, in the grip of the two were standing two youths.
     One was Otto the Sausage; the other was Rabbit Butler.
     The kneeling policeman was proffering the bottle once more. Mr. Buffin snatched at it. He felt that it was just what at that moment he needed most.

     He did what he could. The magistrate asked for his evidence. He said he had none. He said he thought there must be some mistake. With a twisted smile in the direction of the prisoners, he said that he did not remember having seen either of them at the combat. He didn’t believe they were there at all. He didn’t believe they were capable of such a thing. If there was one man who was less likely to assault a policeman than Otto the Sausage, it was Rabbit Butler. The Bench reminded him that both these innocents had actually been discovered in Officer Keating’s grasp. Mr. Buffin smiled a harassed smile, and wiped a drop of perspiration from his brow.
     Officer Keating was enthusiastic. He described the affair from start to finish. But for Mr. Buffin he would have been killed. But for Mr. Buffin there would have been no prisoners in court that day. The world was full of men with more or less golden hearts, but there was only one Mr. Buffin. Might he shake hands with Mr. Buffin?
     The magistrate ruled that he might. More, he would shake hands with him himself. Summoning Mr. Buffin behind his desk, he proceeded to do so. If there were more men like Mr. Buffin, London would be a better place. It was the occasional discovery in our midst of ethereal natures like that of Mr. Buffin which made one so confident for the future of the race.
     The paragon shuffled out. It was bright and sunny in the street, but in Mr. Buffin’s heart there was no sunlight. He was not a quick thinker, but he had come quite swiftly to the conclusion that London was no longer the place for him. Sid Marks had been in court chewing a straw and listening with grave attention to the evidence, and for one moment Mr. Buffin had happened to catch his eye. No medical testimony as to the unhealthiness of London could have moved him more.
     Once round the corner, he ran. It hurt his head to run, but there were things behind him that could hurt his head more than running.

     At the entrance to the Tube8 he stopped. To leave the locality he must have money. He felt in his pockets. Slowly, one by one, he pulled forth his little valuables. His knife . . . his revolver . . . the magistrate’s gold watch . . . He inspected them sadly. They must all go.
     He went into a pawnbroker’s shop at the corner of the street. A few moments later, with money in his pockets, he dived into the Tube.

1. Spider: in late 19th-early 20th c. slang, a wire pick-lock (Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English). Another name for a pickpocket is a dip; it seems to me that the image of a spider silently and surreptitiously lowering itself on a string of silk is a fitting image for a fingersmith. [↩]
2. Clerkenwell: a London neighborhood once famous for the Italian immigrants who lived there, it is also the location of the famous Sadler’s Wells Opera and is now best known for its fine restaurants. [↩]
3. Frith Street is actually in Soho, not Clerkenwell, which is to the northeast. There’s a celebrated jazz club on Frith Street called Ronnie Scott’s, the London equivalent of Birdland in New York. [↩]
4. Sausage, of course, has a sexual connotation, but knowing Wodehouse, I doubt that’s what he had in mind. It’s also cockney rhyming slang for money: “sausage and mash” = “cash”. But according to Partridge, in the early 20th century it was also used in England to describe a low-class German, and given Otto’s name and occupation, that seems to be most likely. [↩]
5. Rabbit has many slang applications, and maybe Wodehouse was simply being cute in using it, but in the early 20th c., it was a euphemism for a horse than ran “in and out”, i.e., started strong and finished weak, and was subsequently more generally applied to mean any person who was “an inferior player in any game” (Partridge). That would seem to fit as the nickname for a lieutenant in a street gang. [↩]
6. Nark: from the Romany (Gypsy) nak, meaning “nose”—a police informer. First collected in a slang dictionary in 1860. I have to admit that I was surprised by this etymology, and had assumed that the term was much more recent and derived from narc, shorthand for undercover narcotics police officer, a usage the OED lists from 1960. [↩]
7. Smitched: The Frith Street Gang are obviously not particularly intellectually gifted, because the correct expression is “snitched”, with an “n” instead of an “m”. There was contemporary slang “to smitch off”, which meant to run away or abscond (Partridge), but what is clearly meant here is “gave evidence against”. [↩]
8. The Tube: the London Underground mass transit. [↩]