Hello, operator speaking, SEymour exchange. Are you there?
Here is SEymour 120, Vancouver Police Department. Operator speaking, how may I assist you?
I have a call for a Sergeant Hook.
I will connect you now.
Switch
Hello, are you there? This is Detective Sergeant Hook speaking.
I have Sanford Pickles of BC Collateral on the line. Will you take the call?
Certainly. Thank you, Irene.
Hook knows BC Collateral well, with its spinning Loans/Sells neon and plate-glass windows filled with its forlorn merchandise. When he served with the Point Grey constabulary, to survive on a constable’s salary he made full use of the service, hawking his father’s watch on multiple occasions to tide him over at a relatively modest two per cent a month. He knows Sanford Pickles as a principled businessman who will not sell collateral prematurely at any price, and will not accept as collateral a man’s spectacles or false teeth.
I will connect you now.
Switch
Calvin, are you there? It’s Sanford Pickles.
Good to hear from you, Sanford. How’s business?
Fair to middling, Calvin. And yourself?
About the same. So what’s the story?
One of my clerks had a hinky customer in the box with two watches and a ring. Could be one of the goons I seen in the paper.
What’d he look like, this fellow?
A shifty bird, talked like a cowboy.
And the ring, Sanford? Are you sure it isn’t an earring?
No, it’s a man’s ring. A fake ruby with something that looks like a Military Cross.
Does the cross have a drop of blood in the centre?
Ah, so that’s what it is. It’s where the royal cypher ought to be. Damn disrespectful if you ask me. But the paper said these birds were packing, so we weren’t gonna take him on. Gerry let him have three fins for the lot.
Very wise. Sanford, can you keep him occupied? We’ll be there in ten minutes.
Not fast enough, I’m afraid. He took his money and went that-away.
Oh, goddammit to hell.
Keep your shirt on, Calvin. I had a boy ankle after him down the street. Saw him go into the Maple Hotel.
It occurs to DS Hook that the top two floors of the Maple Hotel comprise one of Joe Celona’s whorehouses. It’s possible that the stolen earrings were used to purchase a service, therefore not pawned with the rest.
We’re on it, Sanford. On behalf of the force, thank you for your co-operation.
Only doing my civic duty, Officer. But I want the stuff back when you’re finished. And if it’s stolen property, I want my fifteen dollars.
Wave of Crime Strikes the City
Robberies Signal Moral Deterioration
Cecil Harmsworth
Staff Writer
The Beacon
As though the suspected arson attack on a Liquor Control Board outlet were not sufficient cause for public alarm, a recent series of holdups involving guns has called attention to a wave of crime unleashed by the legalization of alcohol.
Two office girls, a service station attendant, a Chinese grocer and a streetcar conductor were robbed at gunpoint of sums ranging from four dollars to twenty dollars. Two pocket watches were stolen (a Tod & Manning and an Elgin family heirloom) and a pair of rhinestone button earrings the victim scrimped for months to buy.
In each case, the perpetrators covered the lower part of their faces with handkerchiefs in American outlaw style and were armed with pistols. Victims described the men as speaking with southern American accents and addressing them as “yous” and “y’all.”
Alderman Henry Garbutt remarked: “This is yet another sign of the moral deterioration of the city under our current mayor.”
Responded Mayor Taylor, facetiously: “Alderman Garrett would find moral deterioration in an overripe vegetable.”
Observers agree that our mayor would do well to follow Attorney General Stalker’s lead and begin to take crime seriously.