Investigator

“ It perhaps is sufficient that the investigator should set down in as orderly manner as possible the things which he conceives, and that he should interpret them according to the standards of his own intellect. ”

“ Having learned the name of an investigator’s spirit-friend, in the manner stated in a previous article, the investigator is set to writing some other names. While he is thus occupied, the medium quickly slips up his sleeve under the table, and writes on his arm the name he has learned. ”

“ The League’s rule in assigning cases, indeed, is to choose as investigator the man whose social, professional, or business connections are such that he can “clean up” with the least [201] effort and in the shortest space of time. When there are many places to visit, the case goes to a man owning a motor car. ”

“ The number of remaining lines to be discovered will depend upon the degree of minute inspection. The eye of a constable will see only the obvious one, while the trained investigator will discover the innumerable faint and inconspicuous evidences. ”

“ A further test has to be applied by each investigator for himself. When we have ascertained, as far as possible, on what evidence our knowledge of an alleged fact rests, we have to consider the inherent probability of the allegation. Is the statement about it in accordance with the general workings of human nature, or with the particular working of the nature of the persons to whom the action in question is ascribed? Father Gerard, for instance, lavishly employs this test. ”

“ Every investigator must before all things look upon himself as one who is summoned to serve on a jury. He has only to consider how far the statement of the case is complete and clearly set forth by the evidence. ”

“ It can not be denied, however, that modern aspects of science and present-day tendencies in research have largely increased the resemblance between the enforced duties of the criminal investigator and the self-imposed task of the biologist. ”

“ I’ll tell you frankly that I was a police detective once, but I’ve left the force. I’m a private citizen, now, same as you are. Got a little business of my own—what you might call a private investigator. Collecting information—jobs like that. ”

“ Although the great truth may lie beyond our reach, the honest and pains-taking search for it may profit much. Although the investigator may fail to reach the ultimate goal of his wishes, he may be entertained by many a pleasing diversion on the way. ”

“ Without prejudice to the power of an investigator-in-charge to seek such advice or assistance as he may consider necessary in carrying out an investigation, the Chief Inspector may appoint any person as an adviser to assist an investigator-in-charge in a particular investigation carried out under this Order. ”

“ Nothing could indeed be farther from my mind than any desire to constitute myself an investigator in this case, and however flattering your friend's good opinion is to me, I should have greatly preferred it had the public received the information, which you are ready to give, without any intervention on my part. ”

“ For an adequate scientific examination of the question of registers, many qualifications are required in the investigator; and the student, when not an investigator, should endeavor to weigh the evidence presented so as to choose with caution from among conflicting opinions. ”

“ The things to be investigated are either true or false. If false, pertinacious inquiry will reveal their falsity. If true, they are profoundly important. For there are no half-truths in Nature; every smallest new departure has portentous consequences; our eyes must open slowly, or we should be overwhelmed. I once likened the feeling of physical investigators in the year 1889 to that of a boy who had long been strumming on the keyboard of a deserted organ into which an unseen power had begun to blow a vivifying breath. ”

“ With all their science, most of the investigators trust too greatly."
Judge Pursuivant shook with gentle laughter. "They are doctors for the most part, and this honesty of theirs is a professional failing that makes them look for it in others. You—begging your pardon—are a magician, a professional deceiver, and you expect trickery in all whom you meet. ”

“ In any case where the Chief Inspector is of the view that more than one Inspector is needed to carry out an investigation, he may designate one or more Inspectors, one of whom shall be designated deputy investigator-in-charge, to assist the investigator-in-charge. ”

“ The medium requires the investigator to write his questions each on a different strip of paper; and before answering, he every time manipulates the paper in the way I have described. When rubbing his fingers over the question, he often shuts the eye which is toward the inquirer—which prevents suspicion ”

“ Neither as regards the loss due to resistance, nor as regards the number of lamps per horse-power, is there the slightest trouble or disappointment on the part of our company, and your correspondent is entirely in error is assuming that there is. Let me suggest that if 'Investigator' really wishes to investigate, and is competent and willing to learn the exact facts, he can do so at this office, where there is no mystery of concealment, but, on the contrary, a strong desire to communicate facts to intelligent inquirers. ”

“ For this reason we criminalists assert much less than other investigators that we seek the truth; if we presume to such an assertion, we should not have the institutions of equity, revision, and, in criminal procedure, retrial. Our knowledge, when named modestly, is only the innermost conviction that some matter is so and so according to human capacity, and “such and such a condition of things.” ”

“ Beginning with the senses, it may be said that very little stress can be laid on the experiments conducted by the Anthropological School as to peculiarities in the sense of smell, taste, sight, and so on, discovered among criminals. In all these inquiries it is so easy for the subject to deceive the investigator, and he has often so direct an interest in doing it that all results in this department must be accepted with the utmost caution. Wherever investigations necessitate the acceptance upon trust of statements made by criminals, their scientific value descends to the lowest level. ”

“ The chief of a detective agency does not go among these men who are laboring under the delusion that they have been "called," when he wants men to do real detective work. He selects his recruits from among acquaintances in whom he has recognized the talents necessary for the making of good thief-catchers or investigators. ”

“ "You see, I went on with this research just the way it led me. That is the only way I ever heard of research going. I asked a question, devised some method of getting an answer, and got—a fresh question. Was this possible, or that possible? You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator, what an intellectual passion grows upon him. You cannot imagine the strange colourless delight of these intellectual desires. ”

“ Their line of investigation thus essentially differs from that followed by the modern investigators, who are solely guided by their intelligence in establishing a truth, which must remain under trial until Science in its progressive course has reached its goal. ”

“ That every specialist in research will derive both pleasure and profit by withdrawing his attempts for a brief period from his own province and listening to what his fellow investigators in widely different specialties have to say in regard to the problems and relations of their several fields of study is too obvious to need enforcement. But we should err in confining the benefits thus arising to actual suggestions. We must recognize the historic fact that modern science really began, not with investigations, but with the ideas which were necessary to the beginnings of investigation. ”

“ The world little knows how many of the thoughts and theories which have passed through the mind of a scientific investigator have been crushed in silence and secrecy by his own severe criticism and adverse examination; ”

“ In some of the unsolved mysteries that have occurred during the last few years the presence of a highly trained intellect at the first hour of the investigation might conceivably have led to the detection of the criminal. As a rule, it is only after the first examination is over and the case appears likely to be a difficult one, that the best brains of the department are brought to bear upon the facts, and it may then be too late for effective action. ”

“ For each criminal case is a problem separate unto itself, and there may not be brought to it more than a trained, logical, imaginative mind, which may unfold it and see all the possibilities. There is but the occasional call upon science, and the good detective knows when to consult the specialist. ”

“ I know of several American newspapers having quite a staff of detectives—yes, detectives. If a criminal escapes justice, or an affair remains surrounded by mystery, these new-fashioned journalists are let loose every morning on a search for the criminal, or to try and pick up threads of information that may lead to the clearing up of the mystery. These detectives are employed, not only in cases of crime, but work just as hard over a divorce or an elopement: it is journalism turned private detective agency. ”

“ CHAPTER V CROSS-EXAMINATION OF EXPERTS
In these days when it is impossible to know everything, but it becomes necessary for success in any avocation to know something of everything and everything of something, the expert is more and more called upon as a witness both in civil and criminal cases. In these times of specialists, their services are often needed to aid the jury in their investigations of questions of fact relating to subjects with which the ordinary man is not acquainted. ”

“ The experienced detective, or prosecutor, or judge, places as much faith in the protestation of the one as in the other. He reserves judgment until sufficient evidence shall have been developed to establish which of the accused is telling the truth. ”

“ The police had done their work thoroughly and the Inspector had submitted its results with telling effect. If it were his purpose to work his evidence up to a climax he had succeeded and the moment had now come for the crowning of his success,—the identification of the man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In a question of forgery, poisoning, or abortion, the judge has recourse to experts in handwriting, chemistry, or obstetrics; but beyond these technical, special, and less frequent cases, in every criminal trial the basis of inquiry is or ought to be formed by the data of criminal biology, psychology, and psycho-pathology. So that, over and above the knowledge of these sciences which is necessary to judges, magistrates, and police officers, it is most important that an expert, or several experts in criminal anthropology should be attached to every court of criminal inquiry. ”

“ So in the end, the great detective is the one who, seated at his desk, with the reports of his dozens of subordinates before him, is able to direct their collective efforts toward a single goal—the production of such evidence as is admissible in a court of law. ”

“ The revelation of the crime, the obscurity of the victims, the length of time elapsing between the perpetration and the discovery, the mystery enveloping the deed with an apparently impregnable mantle, and the swift following detection and apprehension of the perpetrators, all combine to form the basis for one of the most interesting narratives ever found in criminal or detective literature. ”

“ I must commence the search abroad at once. I shall go immediately to a skillful detective, whom I know from reputation, and put the case in his hands. What seems to us so alarming and incomprehensible, may be to a man of his experience simple and clear enough. We are too near the fact to see it truly in its proper light. This man I understand to be faithful and discreet, one who may be intrusted with the investigation of the most delicate affairs. ”

“ The ordinary detective goes to pot-houses to arrest thieves; we go to artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists. The ordinary detective discovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed. We have to trace the origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on at last to intellectual fanaticism and intellectual crime. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Informal investigations are those that usually have a single investigating officer who conducts interviews and collects evidence. In contrast, formal investigations normally involve due process hearings for a designated respondent. Formal procedures are required whenever a respondent is designated. ”

“ 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. ”