A VIS aus ETRANGERS. – Les feuilles publiques ont à plusieurs reprises signalé l’existence à Londres d’associations d’escrocs, dont le but special parait être de victimes le commerce et l’industrie. – Bureau de Renseignements, Mr Pollaky, P.G. [sic] Inquiry-office, 14 George-street, Mansion-house.
INQUIRIES. – Messrs. FORRESTER and GODDARD, late principal officers at the Mansion-house, city of London and the public office, Bow-street, undertake important and CONFIDENTIAL INQUIRIES for the nobility, gentry, solicitors, bankers, insurance companies and others in England or abroad. Offices No. 8 Dane’s-inn. Strand.
Pollaky often advertised in languages other than English. A loose translation of the above is: ‘Warning to Foreigners. – Public papers have repeatedly reported the existence in London of associations of crooks, whose particular purpose seems to be victims of trade and industry. – Intelligence Bureau, Mr Pollaky, P.G. Inquiry-office, 14 George-street, Mansion-house.
Pollaky’s Work for Field
It may have been from as early as 1853 that Ignatius Paul Pollaky began working for Field’s Inquiry Bureau. He continued to do so until 1861. Though it is impossible to be precise as to when his employment there began, by looking at the advertisements which Field placed in The Times, it is possible to see a progression, which taken in conjunction with various news reports allows glimpses into Pollaky’s development. During that time it seems that he worked on his own behalf as well.
Little trace of Pollaky’s early activities in England have been found, and that only from what he himself later wrote. What though, might one make of the following anonymous advertisement from 1852? Just the sort of skills he might have advertised at that time, though there is no way of finding the identity of the individual who actually placed it.
The Times – 1 April 1852
A Continental POLYGLOT PROFESSOR, translator and interpreter of 10 modern languages – English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Portuguese, and Russian – celebrated by his divers polyglotic publications, recently settled in London, is desirous of obtaining PUPILS to teach, documents and books to translate, new works to arrange, counting-houses and schools to attend, private classes to form, a permanent situation; or a partner, able to advance £500 cash, to set up a general translating, interpreting, and consulting office for all nations. […] At 36 Northumberland-street, Charing-cross.
Field had a number of assistants, they are rarely identified by name. The following is typical:
Hull Packet and East Riding Times – Friday, 30 June 1854
CAPTURE OF A RUNAWAY BANKRUPT […] Mr. Inspector Field […] forthwith despatched his assistant to America.
In 1856 Field’s advertisements might offer rewards for lost items: £200 for a missing parcel, lost on a journey between Calais and Dover, containing precious stones, £25 for a lady’s dressing case left in a railway carriage – both advertised on 18 December – ‘Information to be given to Mr C.F. Field, late Chief Inspector of the Detective Police of the Metropolis, Eldon-chambers, Devereux-court, Temple’, the first of these proudly declared. On 25 March the following year he advertised to, ‘RENDER his SERVICES to any candidate at the forthcoming elections’. He sometimes advertised that he had agents in America, and that he would send a specially appointed officer to the continent on the first day of each month.
But from 2 March 1859, a change can be seen in both style and form. That day he placed two advertisements in The Times one above the other. The second was fairly standard fare; the first was in French. There can be little doubt that it was written by Pollaky. He was, after all, the language expert there.
The Times – Wednesday 2 March 1859
BUREAU de RENSEIGNEMENTS PARTICULIERS. – Affaires Continentales. – Le public est informé qu’un agent spécial de cet établissement partira de Londres pour le continent le 1er de chaque mois […]
Pollaky’s name soon began to be placed before the public in newspaper reports, though not yet in advertisements. The following is one of the earliest examples.
Falkirk Herald – Thursday, 2 February 1860
THE MISSING MR GEORGES HIRSCH
During these last 14 days, information has been received in London from Paris that a Mr Georges Hirsch who had lately come from South America, had mysteriously disappeared, and a reward of £100 has been offered for intelligence as to his whereabouts. The opinion on the Continent was that he had been murdered in England, or that another Waterloo Bridge tragedy had been enacted. The case was placed in the hands of Mr Polaky [sic], the foreign superintendent of Field’s Private Inquiry Office, who, from his inquiries set at rest the idea that Mr Hirsch has been foully used. It appears that, on the 31st of July, 1859, Mr Hirsch wrote a letter to Messrs Rimmel, the eminent perfumers of 96 Strand, purporting to be signed by Marchand and Mathey, of Rio Janeiro, intimating that the house could dispose of a large quantity of Messrs Rimmel’s various goods; that, on or about the 12th day of December last, Mr Hirsch called on Messrs Rimmel, and selected perfumery to the amount of £240; and that, after he had so selected the goods, he prevailed on the above gentlemen to discount £700 value in bills which Hirsch had brought with him; that, on or about the 14th December, Hirsch proceeded to different parts of the country, adopting the English name of Stevens, and taking with him various small Bank of England notes, having previously changed the large ones – amounting to £550, and endorsed them in his new name. Mr Pollaky traced Hirsch to several towns in England where he had been purchasing goods, and to the hotels where he had been living in London and Liverpool under his assumed name. What could have induced Mr Georges Hirsch to have acted in the manner described will no doubt have hereafter to be explained. It is almost needless to say Mr Hirsch never paid Mr Rimmel for the goods, nor did he return to this gentleman after he had obtained discount of the bills. The Home Office was set to work to cause inquiries to be made about the missing Mr Hirsch but a telegraphic message from Mr Field to Paris soon put out of the question further trouble on the part of the Government.
Two weeks later, Pollaky’s name was again mentioned in a newspaper report. Five of the crew of the ship John Sugars were charged with conspiracy to injure the captain, and to charge him with the loss of the ship. Three of them were eventually found guilty, and sentenced to imprisonment.
Morning Chronicle – Friday, 17 February 1860
THE ALLEGED WILFUL SINKING OF A MERCHANT SHIP
Yesterday morning the inquiry instituted by the Board of Trade for the purpose of investigating the circumstances connected with the wilful sinking of the barque John Sugars was resumed at the Greenwich Police-court before Mr Traill the presiding magistrate.
Mr Cumberland attended for the Board of Trade, and Mr Digby Seymour, MP, for the defence. Mr Ignatius Pollaky, from the Mansion-house, acted as interpreter; and Mr Henderson, from Lloyd’s Shipping Insurance-office was present to watch the proceedings.
The mention of Pollaky being from the ‘Mansion-house’ is something of a puzzle, although in October 1861 he wrote a letter to Henry Sanford on Mansion House-headed writing paper. He would over a year later, open his own office in George Street, Mansion House (now Mansion House Place). The following report gives him his usual title, though it does misspell the name of the ship.
Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper – Friday, 11 March 1860
THE RECENT ALLEGED WILFUL SINKING OF A SHIP AT SEA
The extraordinary contradictory evidence set forth in the official inquiry at the Greenwich police-court, respecting the alleged wilful scuttling and abandoning of the barque John Lugars [sic] (Captain Hewett), has led the owners of that vessel to indict five of the crew (upon whose statement the inquiry was instituted by the Board of Trade) for perjury and conspiracy. Four out of the five being Prussians, Mr Pollaky, superintendent of the foreign department of the Private Inquiry Office, Devereux-court, Temple, having interpreted the evidence during the inquiry, was retained for the identification of the men; and a true bill having been retu
rned by the grand jury at the past Old Bailey sessions, a warrant, signed by Mr Gurney and Alderman Hale, was placed in the hands of Inspector Hamilton and Sergeant Webb, of the city detective force, and they, in company with Mr Pollaky, went in search of the men, and succeeded eventually in arresting them in Ratcliffe highway.
Further information about Pollaky can be found in the Old Bailey trial transcript. The initial inquiry had taken place in Greenwich before Police Magistrate James Traill. Pollaky had acted as interpreter for the German-speaking crew members. When he then appeared as a witness at the trial at the Old Bailey in May 1860, after firstly stating that he had acted as interpreter and that he had, ‘interpreted well and truly’, he was then briefly cross-examined by Mr Sergeant Ballentine who was acting for the defence, and then by Mr Digby Seymour who was now acting for the prosecution.
Mr Sergeant Ballentine: What else are you besides an interpreter?
Pollaky: I am superintendent of a private inquiry-office in the Temple – I am not a servant of Mr Field’s; I am in connexion with him – I have never been engaged as interpreter in any nautical inquiry before – I am not connected with nautical matters.
Mr Seymour: Were you employed by the Board of Trade?
Pollaky: Yes; I saw another interpreter there to check me.
From which can be seen that Pollaky was fully entitled to act independently from Field.
The advertisements in The Times evolved during the period 1859 to 1861, and on 21 May 1860, Field’s office placed one which included the phrase, ‘The foreign Superintendent of this establishment will this week proceed to Paris, Belgium, and Germany’. It is surely only a small step to the view that he had often been the agent sent on European missions. The advertisement placed on 30 June 1860 offers the information that, ‘The foreign superintendent, who is conversant with the French, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, and other languages, is in daily attendance, between the hours of 2 and 4 p.m.’ – information not only on Pollaky’s working hours, but also of his amazing facility with languages, mentioning Turkish among his polyglot skills. Pollaky’s importance to the company was evidently growing, and that passage now appeared regularly, but his name was not yet mentioned in the advertisements. And then the following advertisement appeared:
The Times – Thursday, 6 September 1860
IF Mr MORITZ FRIED, late of Vienna, will be good enough to CALL on Mr Pollaky, 20 Devereux-court, Temple, he will HEAR of SOMETHING to his ADVANTAGE.
And Pollaky’s name suddenly springs up in one of Field’s advertisements.
Finally, Field must have allowed his name to be mentioned, like a reporter being given a by-line for the first time, and he is credited as an important member of the team. In the future advertisements would read not, ‘The foreign superintendent is in attendance between the hours of 2 and 4 p.m.’ but ‘Ignatius Pollaky, superintendent Foreign Department, in attendance between the hours of 2 and 4 p.m.’. Pollaky’s presence must have been deemed enough of an asset to Field’s company to make it worthwhile for his name to be featured in this way. Probably Pollaky himself had a hand in ensuring that his name was given this prominence, he was, after all, a pushy young fellow with high ambitions.
The Road House Murder
In 1860 the infamous Road House murder took place. This is described (with a small mention of Pollaky) in Kate Summerscale’s book The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. In 1861, a year after the murder, J.W. Stapleton published a book called The Great Crime of 1860, in which he also discussed the matter in some detail. There are a number of references in Appendix IV of that book to Pollaky being present at one of the official examinations into the case in November 1860, although the reason for his presence mystified everyone. It is noted that the ‘proceedings were being closely watched by Mr Pollaky, who appeared to take notes of any expressions made by Mr. Saunders’ (the examining magistrate).
Jonathan Whicher, the police inspector in charge of the investigation, joined the Metropolitan Police Force as a police constable in 1840 and became an inspector in 1856. Charles Dickens, writing his story Detective Police, the same piece in which he disguises Field’s name as Wield, described Whicher, then a sergeant, ‘Sergeant Witchem, shorter and thicker-set and marked with small-pox, has something of a reserved and thoughtful air, as if he were engaged in deep arithmetical calculations.’ It is possible that Dickens’s friend and occasional collaborator Wilkie Collins based the character Sergeant Cuff in his 1868 novel The Moonstone on Whicher, who in 1893 would be described as, ‘the Prince of Detectives’ by ex-Chief Inspector Timothy Cavenagh in his memoirs. (The same phrase would be used to describe Pollaky a few years later.) Whicher must have resented Pollaky’s presence hanging over his investigation, and he figures again in Pollaky’s story in a not too favourable light. Later in The Great Crime of 1860: ‘Mr. Saunders did not meet Mr Pollaky at Bath, but they were seen in conversation on the Bradford railway station on Saturday.’ And again: ‘The mysterious Mr Pollaky was there, and took notes of several parts of the proceedings.’
The Times had reported on Pollaky’s presence at the time, and its reporter was as puzzled by it then as Stapleton was when he wrote his book, stating on 9 November that, ‘Among the persons present to-day the reporter recognised Mr J. Pollaky, […] but the nature of his visit did not transpire.’ On 12 November, the reporter hazarded a guess about Pollaky’s mission, stating that it was, ‘believed to have no reference to the tracing the murderer [sic], but rather to collect information in reference to the extraordinary proceedings which have taken place during the past week’, – a statement which really leaves us very little the wiser.
The fact of Pollaky’s presence, and he was already well known enough to be featured in Stapleton’s book, puzzled many, and must have annoyed not a few. It would certainly not have been pleasant to Inspector Whicher, who was having enough problems trying to solve this infamous case (while at the same time dealing with the demands of public, press, and Sir Richard Mayne), without having the interfering presence of this mysterious Hungarian watching the proceedings. Pollaky must have been there for a reason, but that reason remains a mystery.
Pollaky’s name continued to appear:
The Times – Thursday, 3 January 1861
C. – Milan. – The documents have been returned to the Federal authorities, as I understood from his Excellency, by mutual consent, in June last, the MATTER is, therefore, de facto SETTLED. – POLLAKY. Superintendent, Private Inquiry-office, No. 20, Devereux-court, Temple, 2d January, 1861.
On 6 October 1860 Field had advertised in The Times for information regarding a certain Ernest Brown who had embezzled various sums of money. Ernest Brown or Brewer, the name varies depending on which report one reads, tried very hard to evade capture, but, as the following item shows, had a hard time of it. Field assigned Pollaky to the case.
The following news item was published in Australia but had previously appeared in a number of English newspapers in one form or another. An exciting case of tracking down and following a criminal, it shows a tenacious Pollaky at work in late 1860 and early 1861. The report is quoted in full. Sergeant Spittle, who also appears later in this book, takes the role that would be assumed twelve years later by Inspector Fix in Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days:
Sydney Morning Herald – Friday, 10 May 1861
THE DETECTIVE SYSTEM
The detective police have, within the last few days, obtained a clue likely to lead to the apprehension of a criminal who, in September last, absconded from his employer’s service, after having embezzled over £10,000, a considerable portion of which he is believed to have had in his possession at the time he left this country. The person referred to was a man named Ernest Brewer [Brown], who had been for twenty years in the service of a firm of foreign merchants, carrying on business in Throgmorton-street, and in whom the greatest confidence was reposed. It would seem that he took advantage of his position, and, by falsifying the books and other means, obtained possession of
a very large sum of money.
He absconded about the 20th of September, at which time one of the principals of the firm was on the Continent; but he was expected home, and the culprit, possibly anticipating that a discovery would take place, resolved upon flight, having previously taken the most extraordinary precautions to prevent being detected.
As it was supposed that the culprit would endeavour to make his way to the continent, the matter was placed in the hands of Mr Pollaky, the superintendent of the foreign department in Inspector Field’s detective establishment, but for several weeks he was thrown off the scent. At length, he ascertained that Brewer had gone to Ireland, and thither he started, but was just a week too late; the culprit had left. It was, however, ascertained that he had gone to Liverpool, and it was for some time supposed that he had gone to America, as on the very day that he was at Liverpool one of the Cunard steamers went thence to New York. This opinion was materially strengthened by the fact that very shortly afterwards a number of the Bank of England notes which Brewer was known to have had in his possession at the time he absconded were paid into the Bank of England through different American Bankers.
There is no doubt, however, that this proceeding was merely a dodge on the part of the culprit to deceive those who were in pursuit of him, and put them on a false scent; and that by some means or other he contrived to transmit the bank notes to America, in order to have them exchanged and returned to this country. The ruse, clever as it was, however, did not prove successful, and the pursuit continued, but the culprit resorted to so many clever contrivances, that, although he had one or two narrow escapes, it was found impossible to capture him.
Paddington' Pollaky, Private Detective Page 3