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‘…You don't want to know? Too bad. Your husband won't stay in work, you can be sure of that. We are very well informed… and then the kids… Look, understand this. It's in your own interest. You're a good woman and a good mother. It'll be no joke when your children are howling from hunger. Look, I tell you what: five hundred pounds. And that's just for starters. Five hundred pounds right away.

‘…You won't listen? All right. I'm off. But think about it. There'll still be time tomorrow…Think of it: your husband out of work and your children with nothing to eat…'
³⁴

By mid-November the anarchists' cheerful mood of the summer had plummeted. François, one of the alleged Café Véry bombers, had been arrested, in a blaze of publicity, by Melville – and against all expectations had been extradited to France. People were not sad for him (though they were sorry they'd lent him money) but worried about his children, who were still in London. As Zéro numéro 2 reported, Bordes couldn't keep them for ever. Schouppe and Mathieu had a month's work house painting, but that was about the only bright news for the community which was otherwise, by universal agreement, entirely infiltrated by cops.
³⁵

The arrest and extradition of François was considered a personal triumph for Melville. The prosecution had cleverly argued that, since the Café Véry bomb had gone off as an act of revenge for the arrest and trial of a single person (Ravachol, executed in July), it was not a political crime. Its success had repercussions far and wide. At least one Russian diplomat (or possibly a policeman) proposed to leave for England in hopes of seeing Stepniak, too, extradited at last. The Okhrana's (the Russian Secret Police's) Paris archive contains a document in Russian, unsigned and undated which reads in translation:

Before you leave for London I consider it my duty to warn you against being too enthusiastic about English ‘loyalty' and to express my misgivings based on bitter experience of Russo-English relations.

According to the 1886 Convention, we have the right to demand that S. Kravchinskii [Stepniak] be extradited as the murderer of General Mezentsev. But one of the Articles stipulates that political criminals may not be extradited, nor may those who ‘can prove' that their extradition is being demanded from a desire to punish them for a political crime.

Previously, when we have demanded the extradition of various petty rogues, the English judges have displayed an extremely nit-picking attitude towards our evidence: the exceptional personality of such a villain and murderer as Kravchinskii, therefore, will present them with an even greater temptation to exhibit their customary pedantry and arrogance and flaunt their ancient traditions of asylum even though the latter are totally inapplicable in the present case.

As you know, through his lying and deception Kravchinskii has got himself patrons not only in English society and the press but also among Members of Parliament. Their understandable sense of self-esteem will not allow them to admit that a vile criminal has pulled the wool over their eyes; they will be ashamed of the extraordinary ‘Society of Friends of Russian Freedom' which was founded on his initiative, and falsehood will be upheld
quand même
throughout the extradition proceedings. The wide scope for interpreting the above-cited article of the Convention in different ways will undoubtedly lead to well-publicised hostile propaganda against Russia and compel the judge to forgo a just assessment of the crime and truckle to this propaganda. Already, following the extradition of François, concerns are being voiced in the English press that Russia might demand the extradition of nihilists (even though these are murderers) and it is openly being announced
in advance
that nine tenths of the population will condemn such an extradition. The latter, of course, will happen precisely when your English friends are reassuring you that extradition is beyond doubt.
³⁶

Nobody trusted the English. The Russian Government didn't, and neither did the French socialists. At the height of the Paris bombing campaign in April a French paper,
l'Autorité,
had complained bitterly that:

…John Bull, inventor of the Trade Unions, is very much responsible for all the crises we've been through, and will continue to go through unless we hurry up and stem the rising tide of anti-social theories with which – in a reversal of the truth – the anarchists besmear the great name of socialism.
³⁷

According to this article, Ravachol and his friends learned bomb-making from the Anglo-Saxon dynamitards of 1882-85. And:

Que dire des policiers londonniens? C'est l'incapacité multipliée par la vénalité et la sottise.

(What can one say of London policemen? They represent incompetence made worse by corruptibility and dimness.)

The Walsall case led to new interest from the French police, as well as the press, in the political scene in England, and they had rather more respect than
L'Autorité
did for the Met. One of their agents wrote a long report from London just after the trial, tracing links between English socialists and foreign anarchists. It was conceded that they didn't mix much, although they knew each other. In England, the report pointed out, it was not the bourgeois who were afraid of the anarchists (as in Paris) but the anarchists who were afraid of the bourgeois. The anarchists, very much harassed by the police, want to get rid of Matthews, Hawkins and above all, that enemy of Stepniak, Inspector Melville

…who perhaps does not possess the admirable perspicacity of the late Williamson,
³⁸
but is an agent with great experience and much in favour with the Queen; and who – particularly in the matter of Russian refugees – would (had he not been prevented by his superiors) have rendered the greatest service to the Russian Government – whose cause, in this matter, is linked to that of any modern society.

Melville is perfectly well aware of the links between English and foreign anarchists, of the complaisant attitude of the Fabians, and the indulgence of even moderate English socialists towards nihilists, communists, Fenians, Irish ‘invincibles', Italian irredentists, and German and Austrian demagogues. There isn't a London embassy that hasn't had recourse to his services, no diplomat, no matter how unconcerned by all this, who hasn't sought to get to know him, and in his opinion English anarchism – once suffocated in its cradle as it just has been – is of no danger to England. He reserves his opinion regarding foreign countries.
³⁹

As far as these foreign intelligence agencies were concerned, it was Melville who mattered, not Anderson. In the course of his obsessive pursuance of Parnell, Anderson had lost his grip, and in May of 1892 he was already floundering:

May I here take the opportunity of explaining that it is only in the case of refugees officially expelled from foreign countries that I can rely upon obtaining definite particulars… [where other refugees are concerned] it is a matter of difficulty even to obtain their names…
⁴⁰

The late Superintendent Williamson had been fond of telling Melville ‘The four essentials for a policeman are truthfulness, sobriety, punctuality and tremendous care as to what you tell superiors.'
⁴¹
Melville was tight with information, and as a result, for the first time a senior policeman knew more than the Assistant Chief Constable. He also knew more than his Chief, Littlechild.

1892 ended in triumph for Melville. His public image was exactly what he wanted it to be: he wanted trouble-makers to know that he would play dirty.

On the other hand, English and foreign anarchist groups felt a new bitterness towards London's police, and they attracted sympathy among radicals generally. The publisher of
Commonweal
had lost his wife just four hours before his arrest, and it was said that Melville's men had dragged him into custody leaving the children alone with the body of their dead mother. Melville himself is supposed to have manipulated the feelings of Madame Delbecque as her baby lay dying. And this from a man who knew what it was to lose a wife and a child. How could he live with himself?

Presumably he managed just fine, because he believed that the end justified the means; and also, that everyone has choices. Mowbray had chosen to publish an incendiary article and Madame Delbecque had chosen to cast in her lot with an enemy of society. They must take the consequences. He drew a sharp line between his sentiments as husband and father and the immediate needs of his job.

Certain Paris newspapers at the end of 1892 read like public relations for the Met.

The word on the street in London is that the anarchists are resolved to revenge themselves for François' extradition – both on Melville, and on English justice in general. Everyone blames the English and the number of French anarchists in London has doubled… But the anarchists are trailed by police close as sheepdogs. The police miss nothing. English police are also at ports including French ports, and at Anvers in Belgium – always in plain clothes… Melville, who captured François, has seen correspondence between London and Paris anarchists in an as yet impenetrable code.
¹

What is being set up is a thrilling battle: the sleuth against the forces of evil – and it is no coincidence that this period sees the first success of the detective novel.

The French agents are equally impressed, although momentarily alarmed by a report that Anarchist Central now seems to be London with its driving force in America.
²
Agent R in Paris sees an end to London as a haven: he has been told by an informant who is ‘in a high position in anarchist circles in London' that since the extradition of François, the foreign anarchists no longer feel safe in London and have decided to move to Barcelona.
³
This confirms other reports and there is also talk of moving to Geneva, where it might be easier to print anarchist papers. From January of 1893 agent Z describes how the French and other anarchists are extremely nervous – mainly of each other. Barely a week passes but a meeting is held and one of them is accused of being a grass.

To Melville's satisfaction, the London anarchist community was imploding from within.

Behind the scenes the Russians were trying to sort out extradition treaties. In April of 1893 they were able to announce success in reaching agreements with France and the United States; but the advice to Russia's envoy to England proved correct. The English stuck to their ‘liberties' and the Foreign Office and Home Office were unwilling to collaborate. Melville could not assist.

Chief Inspector Littlechild, according to a not-altogether-reliable informant, told his officers to act openly, that is, never to pretend to political sympathies they did not have in order to get information since ‘it was degrading to the service for an official to play the part of a spy'.
⁴
Either overwhelmed by the growing hegemony of Melville's less honourable tactics, or because he saw a more lucrative future as a private enquiry agent, he retired ‘for reasons of ill health' on 9 April at the age of forty-five. He took three weeks' holiday before his official retirement date.

So from Monday 20 March 1893 – ten years to the day since he began work for ‘Dolly' Williamson in the old office in Whitehall Place – Melville took over as head of Special Branch.

He could look back on his progress to date with some satisfaction. He had begun as a sergeant in a new, under-resourced department. By 1893 Special Branch, for the past two years located in the New Scotland Yard offices, was answerable only to Anderson who reported directly to Home Secretary Asquith. In some ways Melville's job gave him more power to defend the realm than any English policeman including the Commissioner, and he knew it.

One man who had been with Sergeant Melville as a constable in Williamson's outfit in 1883 was Patrick McIntyre, who would later get his revenge over the Walsall plot. Now, in the spring of 1893, McIntyre was recovering from his involvement in a curious affair that had arisen last year out of his ramshackle private life and questionable contacts.

An American doctor, a real one this time but again an abortionist, had come to London in the autumn of 1891 and had taken lodgings at Waterloo. And again this was no ordinary doctor, but a murderer; and in the course of the winter and spring of 1892 he led several unsuspecting young prostitutes to a horrid and painful death by the administration of strychnine. At the same time he wrote anonymous letters accusing unlikely strangers and prominent people of having murdered them. The poisoner was being sought, and Dr Neill Cream's behaviour was suspicious, but there was no proof and he was not arrested; there were many suspects.

In April of 1892 Cream made the acquaintance of a former private detective called John Patrick Haynes, who lived in the Westminster Bridge Road above a photographer's studio. Haynes was from Philadelphia and now, like Neill Cream himself, appeared to be rather down on his luck. He grew quite friendly with Neill Cream, seeing him most days and going to music halls with him, although he listened with dawning suspicion to his wild talk about the poisoned women and the men who (according to Cream's alleged inside knowledge) had murdered them.

Haynes confided his doubts to a drinking partner of his, Sergeant Patrick McIntyre. McIntyre encouraged Cream to talk and he too became friendly with him. McIntyre and Haynes drew Cream into a trap. In fact it was thanks to their subtle approach, and to subsequent research in America which showed that Cream had already served time there for murder but had been released insane, that he was arrested. He was hanged in London in November of 1892.
⁵

Despite this bit of resourceful detection Haynes was still out of work and Sergeant McIntyre was still a sergeant when Melville took over. Somehow in the summer of 1893 McIntyre so offended Melville that in September he lost his position in Special Branch. There were plenty of opportunities for detectives to defraud their employers; they could put in false expenses claims or pay non-existent informants, for instance; in McIntyre's case the stated reason for dismissal was a fraudulent claim for a day not actually worked. But these things never arise out of the blue and there does seem to have been some mistrust between them already. Melville had disciplined McIntyre for insolence before. Also McIntyre allegedly fell out with Le Caron, whom he had been set to guard. McIntyre may have been a fiery and undisciplined, troubled man; he was certainly resentful enough of his sacking to want to cause trouble, two years later, with the articles about Walsall in
Reynolds' Newspaper.
But he blamed his dismissal from the Branch on a suspicion among his superiors that he was growing too fond of an anarchist's daughter. It is a fine romantic tale but perhaps there were other, more mundane reasons.