Who Nicked the Fingerprint Ink….
Way back in history when I joined the police there were things I had to learn quickly and others that took a little more time. One of the first was to learn not to leave your helmet unattended. That was tied for first place with not leaving your sandwiches unattended on night duty. I learned those two basic rules rapidly. Apparently, according to a reliable source, the going rate for a London Bobby's helmet in the 60’s was £25. More than a weeks wages then. As for the sandwiches, well there was nowhere you could get anything to eat after midnight. The East End of London used to ‘close down’ at midnight.
In those days, and right through to the 90’s, the majority of prisoners had to be fingerprinted after being charged. I always noticed in the early days that the tube of fingerprint ink was squeezed and twisted into oblivion with little or nothing left inside. I found it very frustrating.
When I became a trainee detective, I soon learned that full detectives, especially the Detective Sergeants or Inspectors were prone to ask us youngsters for fingerprint ink whenever they needed it. They also used it as a test – exactly testing what, I am not quite sure. As a result, whenever we were passing one of the local police stations, we would make a beeline for the fingerprint room there and see if there were any tubes of ink. If there were, it, or they, immediately disappeared.
It so happened that a retired police officer whom I had worked with, became the ‘Stores Liaison Officer’ at my station and part of his job description was to order supplies. I asked him to get me some fingerprint ink and he made a phone call to Central Supplies. "Oh no" he was told "It’s like gold dust". However, he was told to put in a requisition. When I heard that I decided to make him an offer that he could not refuse.
"Taffy" I said, "If you get me a good supply of ink, I will give you a bottle of Scotch". "How many is a good supply?" he asked. "A couple of boxes of ten tubes" I asked not knowing what to expect. "I’ll put in for a gross" he replied "they will probably cut it down to a dozen". Excuse me for saying so, but some of you younger ones may not know what a gross is, or was. It was twelve dozen equalling one hundred and forty-four.
About a fortnight later, old Taffy called me down to the store. He was in a bit of a panic. "What’s the problem?" I asked. "Wait until you get down here and you’ll see" was his only answer.
When I got to the store, he produced a cardboard box, which measured about two-foot square. I knew that the tubes of ink came in boxes of ten, which measured about six inches square and a third of an inch deep. I quickly broke the seal of the box and there to my surprise were hundreds of boxes. Someone at Central Store had sent a gross of boxes. Instead of receiving 144 tubes, we received 144 boxes containing 10 each – 1,440 tubes of ‘gold dust’. "Take the lot" Taffy said "I’ve never seen them".
I went up to the office and hid them under my desk. A few minutes later, I knocked on the Detective Inspector’s office and when I entered, I merely said to him "A little present for you sir" and handed him two packets of ink totalling twenty tubes. He could hardly speak. I then went to each of the Detective Sergeants and also presented them with two packets each. I then gave each of the other officers a packet each but I still had nearly one hundred packets.
I then decided what I would do. I went to the fingerprint room and put a full ten tubes in the fingerprint drawer. Each morning afterwards, I would return and check to see if they were still there. Sure enough, someone had taken them. So I merely put another ten tubes in it.
For about a week, they kept disappearing until it suddenly stopped. Every police station fingerprint room in the locality now had enough ink to print the entire local population.
I can say in all honestly that since that week, I never entered a fingerprint room that did not have plenty of ink. If they did not, I merely left some of my supply, which I always had in reserve. Old habits die hard………………….
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