The Realities of Golden-Age Fictional Policing

3.4The Realities of Golden-Age Fictional Policing

According to Julian Symons, the Golden-Age writers saw all policemen as good (130) and it would be unthinkable for them to “have created a policeman who beat up suspects […]. Acknowledging that such things happened, they would have thought it undesirable to write about them, because the police were the representatives of established society, and so ought not to be shown behaving badly” (109). Christie shares Symons’s view and shows the police in a favourable light. That does not mean, however, that she spares them her humour and irony or that she avoids voicing some of the popular complaints.

Most negative remarks addressed to the police concern their intelligence or rather the lack of it. As discussed earlier, jokes about policemen had softened by the end of the nineteenth century but the image of empty-headed officers lingered well to the twentieth century. Consequently, the force is described as “our poor thick-headed British police” (Christie, ABC 13); it is questioned where the police would be if most criminals were not fools themselves (Christie, Zero 122), and it is pointed out that there are many crimes that not only remain unsolved but even pass unnoticed by the police (Christie, CT 18), and in “The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan”, “the police were well known to be of a stupidity incredible” (Christie, HP 18)²⁷. This last view is, however, a view of a maid, who also happens to be French, and as discussed above, the working class tended to be the most critical of the police institution.

If the police are not criticised for their ignorance, they are scolded for the intrusion their work necessarily involves. The police destroy privacy of every single person mixed up with an investigation and those thus afflicted accuse the police of unnecessary curiosity. In Death in the Air, Inspector Japp is described as pestilential (99) and as “that dreadful inspector man […] badgering me [Lady Horbury] with questions” (118); the whole force is then characterised as follows: “Nosey, that’s what those fellows are. Can’t mind their own business” (110). Some characters tune the criticism down and permit the police “had been polite, quite pleasant, in fact but [still] the ceaseless questions, that quiet deliberate probing and sifting of every fact was the sort of thing that wore hardly on the nerves” (Christie, Zero 164). Characters are aware and often reminded of the duty to assist the police with their investigations (Christie, Zero 145) and although they are not eager to fulfil this duty, they do not dare not oblige. “One doesn’t refuse to let the police in. They’d take a very poor view of it if you did” (Christie, Clocks 169). Complaints about intrusiveness of the police, in contrast to concerns over their intelligence, are voiced by members of middle and upper classes. As has been discussed above, these classes saw the importance of the organised police and could appreciate their work, but remained worried about their own privacy and rights. As will be shown later, this has not changed so far.

It may seem that the police are severely criticised by Christie’s characters but their complaints are never too harsh. “Christie may treat her policemen with humour or satire, with deference or compassion; but basically she builds respect for them” (Maida 168). She reminds her readers that idiotic police are just a figment of writer’s imagination (Christie, CT 55) and lets Inspector Japp complain about the nature of the representation of the police in fiction: “These detective writers, always making the police out to be fools, and getting their procedure all wrong. Why, if I were to say the things to my super that their inspectors say to superintendents, I should be thrown out of the force to-morrow on my ear” (Christie, DA 23). Christie also draws attention to some of the problems the police had to face, being under the scrutiny of the public and of those in higher ranks in particular. Japp grumbles about the constant debates about the procedures of the police and how ready some people are to have “a question asked in the House about the brutal methods of the police” (DA 17). The professional police officers are members of a hierarchical society, in which they have to satisfy a superintendent, a chief constable and the rest of it (Christie, DA 47) and in contrast to the amateur they “have to act on evidence – not on what we feel and think” (Christie, Zero 179). In comparison to amateur sleuths the police are tightly bound by the rules and in the Golden Age of detective fiction they abide by them.

In the Golden Age, “police forces were not yet integrated into the forty-two large forces of today, and major cities and their county were separately policed” (James, TDF 147). When the local force could not cope with the case, either because of its complexity or of the lack of equipment, Scotland Yard officers were called in. This must have given opportunities for rivalry and competitiveness but Christie shows respect and acceptance of the superiority of the Metropolitan Police. Inspector Glen in The ABC Murders readily agrees to call in Scotland Yard when he realises it was not a local crime (44) and a grieved mother of a victim becomes hopeful when she hears that a Scotland-Yard officers are going to take part in the investigation (66). Local policemen were selected from the community as it was believed that intimate knowledge of the area and its inhabitants helped the policemen solve problems. It paid off in cases of petty thefts and other minor crimes but it did not help to build respect for the constables. The unknown, by mystery surrounded detectives from London, were much easier to respect and admire.

The job of a police officer was considered rather a working-class or at least, not gentlemanly occupation. When announcing the police, Mrs. Head in The Clocks says: “‘A couple of gentlemen to see you.’ […] ‘Leastways,’ she added, ‘they aren’t really gentlemen – it’s the police’” (50). If due respect is not always shown to senior officers, the junior officers are overlooked completely. “Miss Waterhouse looked at him [Sergeant Lamb] in some surprise, as though not aware before that he had an entity of his own and was anything other than a necessary appendage to Inspector Hardcastle” (Clocks 55). The idea that a sergeant could come with his own thought was too fanciful.

Although the police are not considered gentlemen-like and despite being frequently ridiculed, they are pictured as nice, attentive and polite. A Bobby patrolling a street in The ABC Murders tries the doors of shops to check whether they are properly shut (23) and is consequently praised for his conscientiousness. Battle assures the headmistress in Towards Zero of discreetness of the local police (22) and in The Secret of Chimneys it is admitted that the police do much more than the public can imagine (144). It is believed that hard systematic work can bear fruit and that if there is something to be found, the police will find it. “The police of both countries are at work. It’s only a matter of time before they come on the truth,” (Christie, DA 79) says Lord Horbury and expresses the opinion of many people of the similar status and also that of the middle class.

In Christie, the police are sometimes described as foolish or inept, but they are never corrupt nor members of the mafia or other criminal organisations. In Herzoslovakia, on the other hand, “it’s just a question of bribing high enough – and finding the right man – probably the Chief of Police” but “thank God our [British] police force isn’t like that” (Christie, HP 759)²⁸. This attitude is in sharp contrast to the American school of hard boiled detectives who fight against bent coppers and the mafia infiltrated into the force. The image of corruption connected with watchmen and thief-takers did not apply to the Bobby who was believed to be helpful, reliable and honest.

Christie offers a different perspective as regards the French police. Their military-like discipline and close connection with the central government did not add to their popularity among the French and among the British the “gendarme evokes a bitter prejudice [because they] consider the French policeman a political figure comparable to a spy” (Maida 145). Julian Symons emphasises the connection between the French police and the state and corruption associated with the first chief of the Surrete, Eugene Francois Vidocq, and in his view it was virtually impossible for the French to make their policemen fictional heroes (55). According to Christie’s Lord Caterham “the French police are up to all sorts of dodges. Put india-rubber bands round your arm, and then reconstruct the crime and make you jump, and it’s registered on a thermometer” (Christie, SC 200). Christie’s sense of humour and irony is easy to spot here but it is, however, closely linked with the representation of the image connected with the French police. Later Christie softens her criticism and connects the fright of the police with the social class: “The police – it is always a word frightening to that class [working class]. It embroils them in they know not what. It is the same everywhere, in every country” (DA 68). In Britain the working class also had a more problematic relationship with the police than other classes. The middle and upper classes saw the Bobby and the detective as positive characters, and P. D. James remembers that “as an eight-year-old [I was] told by my father that if ever I was alone and afraid or in difficulties I should find a policeman” (TDF 147), which confirms that during the Golden Age of detective fiction the police were generally seen as friendly, courteous and helpful.

The relationship to women police officers was, however, considerably worse, according to Christie. Her fictional writer, Mrs. Oliver, constantly complains about the lack of women in the police and strongly believes that “if a woman were the head of Scotland Yard” (Christie, CT 12) everything would be different and better. And although Christie’s heroines are frequently strong and independent young women, who from time to time perform some detection work, they are not members of the professional police. Women had a very limited role in policing at that time and that role was performed outside the criminal investigation department. They were confined to taking care of children and women arrested or being interrogated; they assisted women victims, dealt with women offenders and patrolled places of amusement to safeguard women against indecency (Natarajan 26). In Christie’s work police women are described as silly (Clocks 187) and “dreadful […] in funny hats who bother people in parks” (CT 18). The latter is uttered by Mrs. Oliver who is a firm believer in woman’s intuition (CT 12) but who wants to see women in leading positions, “at the head of things [because] women know about crime” (CT 18). But another three decades had to pass before women were allowed to enter the criminal investigation departments and other specialised departments.

As has already been stated, the image of the professional police consulting their cases with an amateur detective was not realistic and was a part of the tradition of detective fiction and of its role in the therapeutic process following the First World War. The Second World War changed everything. The extent to which it changed detective fiction and the representation of the police force is explored in the following chapters.