ABOUT DETECTIVES.
_The "Javerts," "Old Sleuths" and "Buckets" of Fiction as Contrasted
with the Genuine Article--Popular Notions of Detective Work Altogether
Erroneous--An Ex-Detective's Views--The Divorce Detective_.
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. The vivid and fertile imagination of the
literary romancist magnifies the illusion. The detective of the
successful novel resembles the Deity in his attributes of ubiquity and
omniscience. In whatever city his functions are exercised we may be sure
that he knows every man-Jack of the criminal classes, their past and
present history, their occupation and their residence. He knows all
their names, their aliases and their soubriquets, just as Julius Caesar,
as tradition tells, knew all the soldiers of his army. Moreover, they
are invariably individuals of remarkable personality. While endowed with
a strong spice of the world, the flesh and the devil, they are at the
same time clothed in a sort of white robe of social immaculacy. They are
half lamb and half wolf, if such a paradoxical being were possible.
Take, for instance, the Inspector Javert of Victor Hugo: A tall man,
dressed in an iron-grey great coat, armed with a thick cane, and wearing
a hat with a turndown brim; grave with an almost menacing gravity, with
a trick of folding his arms, shaking his head and raising his upper lip
with the lower as high as his nose, in a sort of significant grimace. He
had a stub nose with two enormous nostrils, toward which enormous
whiskers mounted on his cheeks. His forehead could not be seen, for it
was hidden by his hat; his eyes could not be seen because they were lost
under his eyebrows; his chin was plunged into his cravat; his hands were
covered by his cuffs, and his cane was carried under his coat. But when
the opportunity arrived there could be seen suddenly emerging from all
this shadow, as from an ambush, an angular, narrow forehead, a fatal
glance, a menacing chin, an enormous hand, and a monstrous rattan. When
he laughed, which was rare and terrible, his thin lips parted and
displayed not only his teeth but his gums, and a savage, flat curl
formed round his nose. When serious he was a bulldog, when he laughed he
was a tiger. His guiding principles--or perhaps instincts is the more
appropriate word--were respect for authority and hatred of rebellion. In
his eyes all crimes were only forms of rebellion. Give a human face,
writes Hugo, to the dog-son of a she-wolf and we shall have Javert. No
wonder that his glance was a gimlet, or that his whole life was divided
between watching and overlooking. And, as if all this analytic
rodomontade was not enough, we are told in characteristic rhetorical
vagueness that he was a pitiless watchman, a marble-hearted spy, a
Brutus contained in a Vidocq.
Readers of Dickens will remember that Mr. Bucket appears on the scene in
Bleak House in a weird and mysterious way, which suggests that Inspector
Byrne, of New York, had been a student of lawyer Tulkinghorn's methods
when he undertook to pump Alderman Jaehne. The sly lawyer is plying
Snagsby with rare old port in the dim twilight and evolving his story,
when suddenly the victim becomes conscious of the presence of "a person
with a hat and stick in his hand, who was not there when he himself came
in, and has not since entered by either of the windows." This composed
and quiet listener is "a stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man
in black, of about middle age," and he looks at Snagsby "as if he was
going to take his portrait." When the poor, hen-pecked wretch, who has
thus been drawn into the legal confessional, learns that Mr. Bucket is a
detective officer, "there is a strong tendency in the clump of Snagsby's
hair to stand on end."
The method of Bucket consists partly of gross flattery and of being "all
things to all men," as Saint Paul somewhere advises. "You're a man of
the world," he says to Snagsby; "a man of business and a man of sense.
That's what you are, and therefore it is unnecessary to tell you to keep
QUIET." He flatters the gorgeous flunkey at Chesney Wold by adroitly
commending his statuesque proportions, and hinting that he has a
friend--a Royal Academy sculptor--who may one of those days make a
drawing of his proportions. Further, to elicit the confidence of the
vain and empty-headed Jeames, Bucket declares that his own father was
successively a page, a footman, a butler, a steward, and an innkeeper.
As Bucket moves along London streets, young men, with shining hats and
sleek hair, evaporate at the monitory touch of his cane. When there is a
big job on the tapis "Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in
consultation together. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this pressing
interest under consideration the fat forefinger seems to rise to the
dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears and it whispers
information; he puts it to his lips and it enjoins him to secrecy; he
rubs it over his nose and it sharpens his scent; he shakes it before a
guilty man and it charms him to his destruction. The Augurs of the
Detective Temple invariably predict that when Mr. Bucket and that finger
are much in conference a terrible avenger will be heard of before long."
Furthermore we are told that "Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of
houses and strolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance
rather languishing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest
condition toward his species, and will drink with most of them. He is
free with his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his
conversation--but through the placid stream of his life there glides an
undercurrent of forefinger."
Sergeant Cuff, of The Moonstone of Wilkie Collins, is "a grizzled,
elderly man, so miserably lean that he looked as if he had not got an
ounce of flesh on his bones. He was dressed in a decent black with a
white cravat. His face was sharp as a hatchet, and the skin of it yellow
and dry like a withered autumn leaf. His eyes, of a steely, light gray,
had a very disconcerting trick, when they encountered your eyes, of
looking as if they expected something more from you than you were aware
of yourself. His walk was soft, his voice was melancholy, his long,
lanky fingers were hooked like claws. He might have been a parson, or an
undertaker, or anything else you like, except what he really was." Then
as to Cuff's methods: He is introduced to the reader with the usual air
of mystery. He makes no allusion whatever to the business he had been
hurriedly summoned to investigate, but "he admired the grounds, and
remarked that he felt the sea air very brisk and refreshing." To the
gardener's astonishment Cuff proved to be quite a mine of learning on
the trumpery subject of rose gardens. As in the case of Bucket, the
effective armor of Cuff is flattery. "You have got a head on your
shoulders and you understand what I mean," is his typical style of
address.
It is unnecessary to remind the reader that the detective of the
novelist cannot be foiled or turned aside by false scents from the
unerring pursuit of his lawful prey. If by _malice prepense_ Javert or
Cuff is temporarily beguiled, it is simply for the purpose of showing
that the writer himself is in reality a very much more ingenious person
than even the subtle detective he depicts for the delectation of his
readers. These tricks resemble those feints of failure common to
professional gymnasts and trapezists, purposely perpetrated with the
object of magnifying in the mind of the excited spectator the difficulty
or danger of the performance.
In our American literature the most popular detective stories are not
composed of the imaginary performances of fictitious characters. We have
made a great advance on that unsatisfactory and _effete_ style. To
satisfy the exacting palate of our reading people, we require a real
flesh-and-blood detective, with a popular name and reputation, to pose
as the figurehead, while an ingenious scribbler does the romancing.
There is something thrilling and realistic in this method, and it
carries an air of veracity which is irresistibly attractive and
convincing. The French people did something of the same kind for Vidocq
and Lecocq; but, as in most everything else, there is a pervading
breeziness and expansiveness of horizon about the American product that
is totally lacking in the _blaze_, frouzy, over-geometrical, Gallic
detective romance.
No doubt the popular conception of the detective has been derived from
the flash literature in which the "Old Sleuths" have formed the
pervading figure. Concerning them, a clever ex-member of that particular
branch of the force recently said:
"Now that I'm out of the business I don't mind telling you what you
perhaps already know--that the usual stories of detective work are the
veriest bosh. There is not one officer in ten thousand, for instance,
who ever disguises himself for any work he may be bent upon. The
successful detective is the man who has the largest and most accurate
knowledge of a particular class of criminals. For instance, in a
counterfeiting case there are one or two United States officers who will
look at a bill, and after a scrutiny will say, 'Now, let's see; there
are three men in the country who are capable of such work as this. Bad
Jack is doing a ten-year stretch in Sing Sing, Clever Charley is in hock
at Joliet, and Sweet William is the only one who is at large--it must be
William.' So he proceeds to locate William, and when they get him they
have the man who did the work."
As to those very interesting newspaper reports about how Detective
So-and-So, while strolling down Broadway, saw a suspicious-looking
individual whom he "piped" to the east side of the city, and eventually
arrested in possession of property supposed to have been the plunder
from a certain burglary, they are equally misleading. As the ex-officer,
quoted above, said:
"Ninety-nine out of a hundred cases are worked through the squeal of
some thief, or ex-thief, who keeps posted on the doings of others of his
class in the city. He knows some officer intimately; goes to him and
tells him that the night before One-Thumbed Charley turned a trick on
Church street, and the stuff is 'planted' at such and such a place.
Acting on this information, the officers visit the place indicated, and
just sit around and wait till their man shows up. Lots of ability about
that, isn't there? Some people have an idea, you know, that after a
burglary the detectives visit the house where it occurred, and, after
examining certain marks on the window where the man got in, immediately
say: 'This is the work of Slippery Sam; he is the only fellow who does
this sort of work in this particular style.' Nothing of the kind. It's
just as I've told you in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. In the
other cases, some citizen gives the officers information that leads to
the capture of the man."
If the foregoing illustrations serve no other purpose, they at least
emphasize the point which might have been made at the outset of this
chapter, that detectives are a recognized necessity of our civilization.
Crime and vice permeate every rank and every profession, and just as
surely as crime and vice will always exist, so will detectives be
employed to discover wrong-doers and hand them over to justice. Crime
and vice are two terms used for the infraction of different kinds of
laws--social and moral--and detectives may be conveniently classed in
the same way. The detectives who deal with the transgression of social
laws, including such crimes as counterfeiting coin and notes, railroad
bonds, scrip, etc., forgers, embezzlers, swindlers, and the wide class
of criminals generally, are exceedingly useful members of the community
when they are inspired by a high sense of duty, and guided by principles
of truth and integrity. The other class of detectives who enact the role
of Paul Pry on breaches of the moral law, as, for example, the working
up of testimony in divorce cases, is mostly a despicable, unreliable,
corrupt being, whose methods are villainous, and whose existence is a
misfortune.
Concerning our New York detectives, a writer of some note said, as
recently as 1879:
"It is claimed that in about eight years the district attorney's office
in New York has not known of one conviction of a criminal through the
instrumentality of their detective police. And in those years the city
has been overwhelmed and startled over and over again by depredations of
almost fabulous magnitude. Still, although the scoundrels are known, and
their haunts familiar to what are called 'the detectives,' they are
never brought to justice unless they stagger up against the
representatives of some of the many detective organizations in New York.
Instead of surrounding the thieves with a net-work of evidence to
convict them, the New York headquarters' detectives furnish them with
all the facilities for escape known to modern criminal practice."
No doubt this deplorable condition of affairs was very largely due to
the prevailing practice of the victims of robberies compromising with
the felons. In this way detectives eagerly seize the opportunity of
acting as go-betweens, and hence their relations with the criminal
classes are established and maintained. They are thus largely
interested, not in the prevention and discovery of crime, but in its
perpetration and concealment. By this method they thrive, and their
large incomes and accumulated property are no doubt largely attributable
to the success of these delicate negotiations.
We are glad to bear testimony to the fact, however, that there is a
great improvement in the detective force of this city, noticeable during
its present administration. The men now engaged on the local detective
force are as a class, those who have kept their eyes open, and have
formed a wide acquaintance among criminals in the district, and are
therefore able to obtain information from these crooks about the
movements of those suspected of having been mixed up in certain criminal
work. For when the reader reflects how easily criminals keep out of the
reach of the police in St. Petersburg, Paris and Vienna, where every
concierge, every porter, every storekeeper, every housekeeper, is
required to report to the police at least once a week all the details of
strangers with whom they may have come in contact, it should be no
wonder that criminals can elude the police in New York and other
American cities.
Concerning the private detective agencies, it has been said by one of
their number:
"They are no better than the regular officers so far as skill is
concerned. The only real difference is that there is a superior
intelligence in the make-up--their disguise--of the agency people. They
are first-rate at shadowing a man, but any man with ordinary good sense,
who knows how to keep his mouth shut, will make a good shadow. If you
will watch the private agency men carefully you will find that they
associate largely with the high-toned criminal class. They are solid
with one or two leaders and all the gamblers. All thieves of any
prominence are gamblers, and as soon as they turn a big trick, they are
sure to turn up here or in some other city and 'play the bank' a little.
The agency men who are associating with the gamblers hear of this as
soon as the crook strikes town, and a little inquiry set on foot will
show where the crook came from. If, then, in the course of a few days, a
complaint is lodged with the agency people from the town where the
suspected party has been that a big confidence game has been played, or
that a forged or raised check has been worked on some bank or other
institution, it is not very hard to imagine that the thief who was
recently so flush is the one who turned the trick."
There are a great many private detective organizations in New York City,
some of which are located in elegant and commodious quarters, with a
net-work of agencies covering the whole country and extending even to
Europe. Between these reliable firms and the guttersnipe operator there
are among detectives, as among other professions, every grade of
reliability and respectability, some making a handsome living and some
earning a bare existence. There are some thousands of them, and they all
occasionally find something to do which pays. It may be watching some
money-broker's exchange down-town, for the dishonest boy of some
establishment clandestinely selling the postage stamps of his firm. It
may be shadowing a confidential clerk, whose blood-shot eyes and
generally "used-up" air have attracted the notice of his employers, who
thereupon desire to learn where and how his evenings are spent. It may
be some bank clerk, hitherto enjoying the confidence of the directors,
but who now, in consequence of certain rumors, desire to have him
watched. Or it may be any of a thousand instances in which an employee
ceases to retain the full confidence of his employer, and the convenient
private detective's services are at once put in requisition. Undoubtedly
it would greatly surprise the army of clerks, cashiers and assistants of
this and every great city to learn how many of them are thus under
detective espionage. The young fellow may have fallen into the web of
the siren. He may be down at Coney Island or at the races enjoying
himself; utterly unconscious that a pair of watchful eyes is observing
every motion and chronicling every act. Some fatal morning the reckoning
comes. He may be a bank teller, and he is requested by the board of
directors to show his books and give an account of the situation and
prospects of the bank. Despite his proficiency in bookkeeping, he will
be unable to figure up and cover the money he has squandered in gambling
houses, on the street, or at the race-course. _"Crimine ab uno disce
omnes,"_ says Virgil. From a single offense you may gather the nature of
the whole.
The detective who accepts employment for the purpose of procuring
testimony in divorce cases is undoubtedly at the nadir of his
profession. No self-respecting member of the private detective
organizations will undertake the service even when the pecuniary
inducement, as is frequently the case, is large and tempting. For
testimony so procured is regarded by the courts with suspicion. The
veracity of a person who would crawl into a house, peer through a
key-hole or crane his head through a transom window for the purpose of
witnessing an act of immorality, can hardly be considered higher than
his sense of honor, decency and self-respect. When he stoops to this
kind of business he will hardly manifest any remarkable zeal for
truth-telling, and he will be quite likely to offer to sell his evidence
to the other side--a course which invariably transpires when the other
side is willing to pay for the information.
Violations of conjugal faith are, unfortunately, not unknown, but in the
majority of cases the intrigue progresses in secure secrecy until some
wholly unforeseen accident brings it to sudden and relentless publicity.
The recent case of a Brooklyn lady, who was carried into the
city-hospital of that city about the beginning of last June, with both
legs broken, illustrates this position with singular force and aptness.
To quote from the article of the New York _Sun_ of June 7, 1886:
"Mrs. Williams is young and pretty. 'She is not bad,' her melancholy
husband said of her yesterday, 'only gay like.' She has been married
about ten years, and two little children--a boy and a girl--are now
longing for a mother's care and tenderness, which she cannot give them
perhaps ever again. The faithful husband of the unfortunate woman is a
hard-working man, honest if not dashing, devoted to his home, fond of
his wife and proud of his children. 'I have been way down,' he says,
'but I am getting good wages now and getting on top again. But Lizzie
wasn't content with these things. She was full of life, and I ought to
have watched her long ago. Then this wouldn't have happened.'
"What has happened is this: When Lizzie went down on Fulton street on
Saturday a week ago, ostensibly to make some purchases, she didn't
return that night. Her husband's anxiety was increased when on Sunday he
had no tidings of her. Day after day passed without word, and he sent
for a young woman friend of Mrs. Williams to come in and look after the
children and the household.
"On Thursday a young man from East New York, a friend of Mrs. Williams
and a relative of a certain young lady friend of hers, stuck his head in
the basement window of Fainter Williams' house and said:
"'Lizzy is in the City Hospital. She was hurt by a runaway, and both her
legs are broken.'
"Mrs. Williams had first sent word to her East New York friend, who had
thus taken the first tidings of his wayward wife to her anxious
husband. Williams went at once to the hospital and found his Lizzie. She
told him she had been driving with a friend in Fulton avenue and had
been hurt.
"'Who was he?' Williams asked eagerly, the suspicions which he had been
putting away from him for a long time suddenly becoming convictions.
"'None of your business,' said pretty Lizzie, defiantly. This reply was
calculated to satisfy her husband that all was not right. In fact, it
convinced him that everything was wrong, and in his excitement and pain
he upbraided his wife with such vehemence that she called upon the
hospital attendants to put him out of the ward unless he quieted down.
"Superintendent of Police Campbell heard of the alleged runaway in
Fulton street, and he wanted to know why it had never been reported to
him officially. He began an investigation and learned that the mishap
had occurred out on the Coney Island boulevard. Mrs. Williams was
confronted with this report. She denied its truth vehemently and
protested 'before Almighty God' and in the presence of nurses and
patients that she was run over and hurt in Fulton street. Nothing could
move her from this statement, and when fifty witnesses to her accident
sent word to the Police Superintendent of what they had seen, she was
not discomfited, but repeated her false statements with determination.
"Mr. Williams says that his wife has for a long time nodded to
sportive-looking men as they have passed his Bergen street house, and
her absences from home have been irregular and sometimes prolonged
indiscreetly into the evening. He has felt that her love of attention
and social excitement was leading her beyond the bounds of propriety,
but he had no doubt until now of her faithfulness to him and her
children.
"Who took Mrs. Williams to drive on this eventful Saturday afternoon a
week ago is her secret, shared only by her escort. Where they met is not
known by anyone, but they started about four o'clock and drove through
Prospect Park to the Coney Island boulevard. The day was fine and many
fashionable turnouts and flashy rigs were on the road. Mrs. Williams, in
her close-fitting and becoming dark habit, sat beside a young man not
over twenty-five years old, in a road wagon of approved style, and
behind a well-kept and fleet-footed horse. It was unmistakably a private
rig. Her escort was of light hair and complexion, fashionably dressed,
and of a style that is called 'giddy.'
"Down the level road they drove at a good pace toward the King's
Highway, which crosses the boulevard about two and a half miles from the
Park, and just north of John Kelly's hospitable road house. A short
distance before this point was reached ex-Alderman Ruggles of Brooklyn
came bowling along at a 2.40 gait, and he gave the young man who was
driving Mrs. Williams a brush along an open stretch of road. As they
were speeding on toward Coney Island a dog-cart suddenly loomed up,
coming from the opposite direction, and bore down upon the racers.
"Mrs. Williams and her friend were on the right side of the road and
Alderman Ruggles was in the middle. The dog-cart undertook to pass
between them, and in doing so struck the wheel of the light road wagon,
throwing Mrs. Williams' companion out. He was not hurt, and he held on
to the reins just long enough to check his horse's speed and change his
course. The spirited animal turned short across the road right in front
of Kelly's and the wagon was upset, throwing Mrs. Williams out. She fell
under the wagon and her left ankle and right thigh were fractured. A
great many people saw the upset and ran to the injured woman's
assistance. . . . . .
"When Mr. Williams was told about the accident he said, 'If that's so, I
give her up. If she has done that I am through with her. She cannot come
back to me. As long as she lies to me, to shield this other fellow, she
may go to him. She can't come to me.'"
This giddy Brooklyn woman reckoned too much on her influence over her
husband, when she expected to soothe his resentment by holding her
tongue. Those women who deceive good, indulgent husbands, frequently
discover, to their sorrow, that the most unmerciful and inexorable of
men are those who have been deceived by their idolized partners. Yet men
of this kind would be far more likely to thrash a private detective, who
had possessed himself of the particulars of the amour in a sneaking way,
than to recompense him, and properly, while the courts would absolutely
refuse to receive such testimony unless abundantly corroborated. For
those and other considerations, which will readily occur to the
thoughtful reader, the detective who engages to get up testimony in
cases of marital unfaithfulness is regarded as quite ghoulish by his
fellow-detectives, and looked upon as being entirely unworthy of
credence by lawyers and courts.
After all that has been said the press is, on the whole, the best
detective--the most reliable and efficient agent against evil-doers.
When a crime is committed the daily newspaper, with its Argus eyes,
gives such minute and circumstantial details, together with such
exhaustive particulars concerning its environment, and the details of
its perpetration and supposed authors, that the public at large, so
instructed and informed, become detectives. Hence "crooked" and wicked
people are really more afraid of the thunderbolt exposure of the
newspapers than of the slower and more uncertain action of the law.