Detective story

“ Striking an attitude in imitation of a story book detective, Justice began to address the group. “Gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “we have here a mystery which has baffled the brightest minds in the country, but unraveling it has been the merest child’s play to a great detective like myself. Here are the facts in the case. A man goes down a stairway. The first half of his descent is shrouded in oblivion; half way down he begins to leave bloody footprints. ”

“ Yes, because the detective is a romantic figure, a hero, gifted with almost superhuman keenness and infallibility. Nobody ever accused me of being romantic. I am only an ordinary fellow who plugs away like any other business man. Every day I am up against it; I fall down; some crook turns a trick on me. What kind of a story would that make? ”

“ Winchester, and a suspicion once formed, holds imperious sway over the mind of a detective till it is either disproved by facts or confirmed in the same manner into a settled belief.
“Madam,” I remarked, “your loss is very great, and demands the most speedy and vigorous effort on the part of the police, that it may not result in a permanent one. ”

“ It is a world just as complete as that of business or society, however, and much of the time of a detective or police official is spent keeping track of people in it, forming acquaintances and connections in various ways, and establishing the organization of informants that will help in the detection and prevention of crime. A good detective is like a good salesman—he keeps track of his “trade.”
Shortly after midnight of the first day, Commissioner Dougherty received a message over the telephone that sent him uptown to meet an informant. ”

“ A STORY TOLD BY A DETECTIVE. I. THE MYSTERIOUS RENDEZVOUS.
Sometimes in the course of his experience, a detective, while engaged in ferreting out the mystery of one crime, runs inadvertently upon the clue to another. But rarely has this been done in a manner more unexpected or with attendant circumstances of greater interest than in the instance I am now about to relate.
For some time the penetration of certain Washington officials had been baffled by the clever devices of a gang of counterfeiters who had inundated the western portion of Massachusetts with spurious Treasury notes. ”

“ "Like a good detective story myself," remarked Miss Howard. ”

“ I have a theory, and if I am correct I believe I will be able to delve until I strike a clue, and if I do and prove the story correct and solve the mystery, we shall have performed one of the most extraordinary detective feats ever accomplished."
"I will tell you frankly, Jack, I believe you are being played by a crazy man." ”

“ Winchester,” I interrupted, “do you realize that if what you say is true, the diamonds are probably still in your house?”
“Just where I think they are, Mr. Byrd; just where I think they are.”
I began to have a strong notion of his suspicion.
“And Philippa,” I suggested.
“Saw what I heard.”
I made no further effort to detain him. “Let us have her here,” I cried. “If what you surmise is true, the mystery ought to be one of easy solution. So easy,” I could not forbear adding, “that I wonder you felt the need of sending for a detective.” ”

“ He gave a curious lift of his brows, which I answered with a short smile. In another moment I was in the street.
My first ring at the bell of No.—East Seventy-third Street brought response in the [Pg 3] shape of Mr. Winchester himself. Seeing me, his countenance fell, but in another instant brightened as I observed:
“You sent for a detective, sir;” and quietly showed him my badge.
“Yes,” he murmured; “but I did not expect”—he paused. I was used to these pauses; I do not suppose I look exactly like the ordinary detective. “Your name?” he asked, ushering me into a small reception-room. ”

“ The testimony of these women, then, become the sole means by which to convict the criminals, and their testimony can be obtained in only one way—a female detective makes their acquaintance, wins their confidence, and draws out the story of the crime. Such an instance is given in "The Expressman and the Detective," hitherto published.
I have in my employ several ladies of unquestionable purity of life, who are also among the most successful operators on my whole force. I take pleasure in offering this tribute to their ability, and their spotless characters. ”

“ The following pages narrate a story of detective experience, which, in many respects, is alike peculiar and interesting, and one which evinces in a marked degree the correctness of one of the cardinal principles of my detective system, viz.: "That crime can and must be detected by the pure and honest heart obtaining a controlling power over that of the criminal." ”

“ Inquire at all garages, automobile stands, stables, etc.
If found, notify Detective Bureau.
Before noon, the Commissioner has postponed appointments, assigned routine business, and is engaged in an investigation that will keep him busy until that morning, twelve days later, when the first arrests are made, and the case is, in police parlance, “broken.”
Where do the police begin in such a crime? What do they start with when there is apparently so little to work upon?
In spite of the wide popular interest in police and criminal matters, the average citizen has no very clear idea. ”

“ This took too much time, it was found, and the old-fashioned “line-up” of criminals was chiefly a spectacle, the same offenders dropping into the hands of the police with more or less regularity. So detectives were re-distributed on a plan that attaches a proper number of plain-clothes policemen to each precinct, according to its needs, and in those precincts the men live and become acquainted with local criminals. Many of them work in sections where they were born, 22and detectives speaking foreign languages are assigned to foreign quarters. ”

“ There seems to be a romantic impulse for some in the very trials that beset the path of crime. The more hair-breadth escapes to be made, the more eagerly do these villains seem to enter upon their course. But I must not stop to moralize farther here. Unwilling to recite any tale of my own experience of the kind to which I have alluded, as related to the rescuing of intended female victims from the snares of the despoiler, which now comes to my mind, I will recall, as clearly as I can, the story of a brother detective. ”

“ John
My detective—didn't he meet their train?
[Judge nods yes.
Lucy
But they saw him first?
[Judge shakes head no.
Theodore
Didn't he follow them?
[Judge nods yes.
John
Where'd they go? Where are they? Speak, man, speak!
Judge
[raises cap and handkerchief]
Now, just give me a chance and I'll tell the whole story.... The detective was waiting [Pg 196] at the station. He saw them step out of the train. He followed them to the cab-stand. He watched them get into a taxi—jumped into another himself—and away they went, pursued by the detective and blissfully ignorant of his existence.... ”

“ Then there will be an interruption, perhaps, while an assistant soothes and sends away a crank who occasionally turns up 29with a purely imaginary affair of his own, and two more detectives pass in accompanied by a man and a woman who look just like the people one sees dining at a fashionable uptown restaurant. ”

“ How he was finally trapped and caught by a shrewd detective is graphically told in the pages of this excellent story.
131. THE HEADLESS BODY.—A body with its head cut off is found in a lonely spot, and the identification of the person murdered, and the tracking of the murderer, form the basis of one of the most thrilling stories ever written. An excellent book and interesting to all.
132. SKILLFUL CHARLIE.—Everybody in New York knows the detective who bore this title. He is now retired from the force, and loves to repeat some of the stirring episodes which marked his professional career. ”

“ No woman enjoys parting with such gems as these even for a few days.”
She laughed. “But a woman does not resort [Pg 68] to crime, run the risk of police investigation and submit to such indignities as are inflicted upon her by the so-called detective agent, for the mere sake of retaining in her possession jewels of any price. She must have another motive—a motive of terror lest an evil greater than these should come upon her—the loss of her husband’s love or trust, the—the—”
“Madam, what have you been doing? ”

“ Nay, gentlemen, I need not ask you to imagine it. You were a part of the community. It came to you in your daily avocations, it sent a thrill through your beings and you felt that life was not secure. Every man turned detective. Every act and fact and thought that occurred to the thousand, to the million men all over the United States, was spread abroad and furnished and given for the identification of the criminal, and still it remained an impenetrable mystery. ”

“ So he left Block to show the Countess back to the waiting-room, and, motioning to the porter that he might also go, the Chief hastened to the sleeping-car, the examination of which, too long delayed, claimed his urgent attention.
It is the first duty of a good detective to visit the actual theatre of a crime and overhaul it inch by inch,—seeking, searching, investigating, looking for any, even the most insignificant, traces of the murderer’s hands. ”

“ Here was a second surprise for our hero. The baron had called the woman mother, and the woman, as our hero knew, was Mrs. Richards.
"Something must be done at once, Mrs. Richards."
"What can we do but wait? The girl is buried; they can never secure any evidence, and in case they do finally it will be too late."
"You know this detective?" ”

“ Singular as it may seem, nearly every professional thief has a method of working up his "jobs," and a detective very frequently can positively say: "Such and such a person had a hand in that affair," merely because they know the style and method of the work. ”

“ There are detectives—real ones—on the police force of all the great cities of the world to-day, most of them specialists, a few of them geniuses capable of undertaking the ferreting out of any sort of mystery, but the last are rare. The police detective usually lacks the training, education, and social experience to make him effective in dealing with the class of elite criminals who make high society their field. Yet, of course, it is this class of crooks who most excite our interest and who fill the pages of popular detective fiction. ”

“ That dapper young gentleman, who twirls his moustache and swings his cane so jauntily upon the promenade, is an object of admiration to many; but to the man who knows the secrets of his inner life another scene is opened, and he remembers when this same exquisite walked the cell of a prison—a convict guilty of a crime.
Through all the various grades of society the detective has wended his way, and he has looked into men's hearts when infamy stared them in the face and dishonor impended over them. ”

“ To be a thief is bad enough, but to call yourself a detective and then be in league with a gang of cut-throats, river-pirates and burglars, is far worse, and I give you my word that I intend to shove you as hard as I can. ”

“ We are told that "all the world loves a lover," and it is, perhaps, equally true that most people like to read the details of clever detective exploits. The deeds of criminals naturally awaken the emotions of horror, fear, curiosity and awe in proportion to their heinousness and the mystery by which they are enveloped. Consequently the detective officer who pierces the mystery—unravels it thread by thread, and by unerring sagacity penetrates its innermost depths and lays his hand on the criminal—is at once invested, in the popular mind, with qualities approaching the preternatural. ”

“ From the comparatively easy work of watching or "locating," he is advanced through the more difficult varieties of "shadowing" and "trailing," until eventually he may develop into a first-class man who will be set to unravel a murder mystery or to "rope" a professional criminal. But with years of training the best material makes few real detectives, and the real detective remains in fact the man who sits at the mahogany desk in the central office and presses the row of mother of pearl buttons in front of him. ”

“ Though the work of an everyday police detective, you will find in it no lack of mystery or romance; and if at the end you perceive that it runs, as such cases frequently do, up against a perfectly blank wall, you must remember that openings can be made in walls, and that the loosening of one weak stone from its appointed place, sometimes leads to the downfall of all. ”

“ The pettifogging lawyers and irresponsible penny liners of the press have educated it up to believing that all detectives are thieves, thugs and black guards, just because there are some men in the business who make the peddling of family secrets and the working up of evidence in divorce cases a specialty. I could never quite understand why this state of affairs should be true, for I [Pg 6] know many men of as good moral character and just as honest and upright in the detective business as I have found in any of the other professions. ”

“ Detectives and policemen, taken as a whole, are by no means the bunglers and boobies that they are made out to be in the pantomimes and in the pages of detective stories. I do not say that they are all born geniuses in the detection of crime, for genius is no commoner among detectives than it is among bakers, bankers, clergymen, novelists, barristers, or cooks. ”

“ No one has seen him enter or depart; his position is far above the reach of suspicion; every clue has been destroyed in the fire-place, and no witness to his guilt can possibly be raised up. So he thinks; and as month after month passes, as detective after detective abandons the case in despair, as the excitement dies out in the public mind, and as the friends of the deceased apparently give up the hopeless task of seeking for the murderer, his confidence becomes complete, and he no longer fears detection. ”