The Barker's Dozen - Reminiscences of an Early Police Dog by Robert Warr Read Free Book Online Page A

then one of their guests is. A small amount of subtle and judicious questioning and we may be able to determine where the robbers will strike.’
    ‘How on earth are you going to do that Thompson?’ our visitor asked with some incredulity.
    ‘Simplicity itself,’ my master answered, with a smile. ‘All I have to do is ask Lord Morton if his household has been suffering from any thefts of luxury foods recently. If they haven’t, I will start checking up the guests. The inexplicable feature of this case may be its solution.’
    I must admit that I breathed a sigh of relief when your uncle called in Sergeant Allen and asked him to send a message to Lord Morton at his club, which , I was given to understand, he visited for lunch every day. I realised that speaking up like that had risked exposure but I also thought that the two men would each assume that the other had spoken. After all, the alternative explanation was simply unbelievable; whoever heard of a talking Spaniel?
    We had come back from lunch and I had settled down for a nap when Sergeant Allen entered the office to say that Lord Morton had arrived and wished to see my master. Your uncle asked the sergeant to show up our noble visitor.
    ‘Thompson,’ that worthy said entering the office, angrily brandishing a sheet of paper, ‘what the devil did you mean by “Must see you urgently if expensive foods are being stolen”? A most irregular communication, don’t you know.’
    ‘Irregular it may be,’ responded my master showing his visitor to a chair. ‘I deduce, however, from your prompt response that you have experienced such thefts?’
    ‘My smoked oysters; but I don’t understand how you knew and I cannot see what it has to do with Scotland Yard. The papers have criticised you, young man, for wasting time on trivialities but as I have known you most of your life, I discounted the reports. Are there no serious criminals left to catch?’
    ‘That is precisely what we are trying to do,’ my master responded good-humouredly. ‘As you have read the newspaper reports, you will probably recall that in the days before the burglaries at the properties of both Lord Harridge and Sir James, there were small thefts of food. It is my belief that you could be the next victim. If my assumptions are correct the robbery will be sometime in the hours following your ball.’
    Your uncle ran over the facts we had gathered during our investigations and with the addition of some pieces of complete conjecture , he produced a case that almost exactly matched the information I had learnt from Portia, even though he seemed to have missed the relevance of the feline involvement; something he dismissed as an ironic coincidence. By the time he had finished, Lord Morton was our keen conspirator.
    As my master had already been invited to the ball, it was decided that he would be solely responsible for ensuring that nothing untoward happened while the party was in progress. Although my master felt that it was extremely unlikely, there was always the chance that the criminal might make use of the confusion to enter the house during the ball with the intention of hiding for a few hours.
    At the end of the evening when the last guests were departing, my master and I made ourselves comfortable in Lord Morton’s darkened study to await developments. The Assistant Commissioner was driven to the local police station to summon Sergeant Allen, who was waiting there with several constables dressed as young men about town who would ensure that our villain would not escape.
    I do hate this type of waiting; the minutes stretch into hours with every small noise or stray scent causing one to become fully alert. At the same time, one can’t help worrying: in this case, that the villain might detect Sergeant Allen’s party, even though they were disguised, and be scared off.  Eventually Portia meowed softly in the hall and I knew that the waiting was over.
    I got to my feet and moved cautiously to