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The clutching arm of the law
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HURRIEDLY scampering to the roof of the hotel with all the various paraphernalia used by opium smokers, two men were not quite quick enough to avoid the clutching arm of the law during two lightning raids which were carried out at the Grand and Far Eastern hotels on Yu Ya Ching Road (today’s Xizang Road) last night.
Detectives, catching sight of their heels vanishing up a narrow stairway leading to the roof of the first-named hostelry, put on all speed, and the two luckless fellows were seized before they had time to dump the incriminating objects carried by them.
The two raids were carried out on a major scale, a few minutes after the arrival of the police and Russian Regiment S.V.C. vans.
The two hotels were surrounded by a ring of glinting bayonets carried by steel-helmeted Russian volunteers. With all avenues of escape blocked, the raiding police parties formed into several groups and, with pistols in hand, made their way into the Grand Hotel, which was the first to be searched.
Within a few minutes two prisoners were being led to the doorway through a crowd of wide-eyed Chinese men and women, who stood spellbound in the hotel lobby behind the rifles of Sikh members of the Reserve Unit and the steel-waistcoated uniformed police and detectives from Louza and the Reserve Unit.
These were the two men seized on the roof and, behind them, came the various objects necessary for opium smoking, with the addition of some scales and some white powder. Meanwhile, raiding parties were entering every room in the hotel surprising numerous mahjong parties throughout the building.
Herding the inmates into one corner while detectives searched them, other police literally went through the rooms with a tooth comb, mattresses, pillows, blankets and sheets being unceremoniously dumped on the floor while the contents of wardrobes were brought out for further scrutiny.
Even hats and shoes were searched and chairs and cushions prodded before the parties were satisfied that nothing incriminating was stored there.
The raids were not without an amusing side, on more than one occasion protesting Chinese being dragged out of bed, sleepy-eyed and somewhat shocked, to submit to the customary “running over” of the Chinese detectives.
Then would come a thorough searching of the bed with the mattress thrown to one end and the pillows and sheets at the other while the former occupant, now thoroughly awake, looked on with awe and trepidation.
Even bathrooms were not exempt from the searches as one unfortunate Chinese gentleman found to his cost, when, with nothing but a lather of soap to cover his nakedness, he was asked to stand up while smiling detectives diligently searched through the hot water in the tub.
Luckily nothing was found there, except some bath salts which were looked upon with some suspicion until a foreign officer explained that they were quite harmless.
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