DETECTIVES AND OTHERS
A DETECTIVE, according to the dictionaries, is one “whose occupation it
is to discover matters as to which information is desired, particularly
wrong-doers, and to obtain evidence to be used against them.” A private
detective, by the same authority, is one “engaged unofficially in
obtaining secret information for or guarding the private interests of
those who employ him.” The definition emphasizes the official character
of detectives in general as contrasted with those whose services may be
enlisted for hire by the individual citizen, but the distinction is of
little importance, since it is based arbitrarily upon the character of
the employer (whether the State or a private client) instead of upon
the nature of the employment itself, which is the only thing which is
likely to interest us about detectives at all.
The sanctified tradition that a detective was an agile person
with a variety of side-whiskers no longer obtains even in light
literature, and the most imaginative of us is frankly aware of the
fact that a detective is just a common man earning (or pretending to
earn) a common living by common and obvious means. Yet in spite of
ourselves we are accustomed to attribute superhuman acuteness and
a lightning-like rapidity of intellect to this vague and romantic
class of fellow-citizens. The ordinary work of a detective, however,
requires neither of these qualities. Honesty and obedience are his
chief requirements, and if he have intelligence as well, so much the
better, provided it be of the variety known as horse sense. A genuine
candidate for the job of Sherlock Holmes would find little competition.
In the first place, the usual work of a detective does not demand any
extraordinary powers of deduction at all.
Leaving out of consideration those who are merely private policemen
(often in uniform), and principally engaged in patrolling residential
streets, preserving order at fairs, race-tracks, and political
meetings, or in breaking strikes and preventing riots, the largest part
of the work for which detectives are employed is not in the detection
of crime and criminals, but in simply watching people, following
them, and reporting as accurately as possible their movements.
These functions are known in the vernacular as spotting, locating,
and trailing. It requires patience, some powers of observation,
and occasionally a little ingenuity. The real detective under such
circumstances is the man to whom they hand in their reports. Yet
much of the most dramatic and valuable work that is done involves no
acuteness at all, but simply a willingness to act as a spy and to brave
the dangers of being found out.
There is nothing more thrilling in the pages of modern history than the
story of the man (James McPartland) who uncovered the conspiracies of
the Molly McGuires. But the work of this man was that of a spy pure
and simple.
Another highly specialized class of detectives is that engaged in
police and banking work, who by experience (or even origin) have a
wide and intimate acquaintance with criminals of various sorts, and
by their familiarity with the latter’s whereabouts, associates, work,
and methods are able to recognize and run down the perpetrators of
particular crimes.
Thus, for example, there are men in the detective bureau of New York
City who know by name, and perhaps have a speaking acquaintance with,
a large number of the pick-pockets and burglars of the East Side. They
know their haunts and their ties of friendship or marriage. When any
particular job is pulled off they have a pretty shrewd idea of who
is responsible for it and lay their plans accordingly. If necessary,
they run in the whole bunch and put each of them through a course of
interrogation, accusation, and brow-beating until some one breaks down
or makes a slip that involves him in a tangle. These men are special
policemen whose knowledge makes them detectives by courtesy. But
their work does not involve any particular superiority or quickness
of intellect—the quality which we are wont to associate with the
detection of crime.
Now, if the ordinary householder finds that his wife’s necklace has
mysteriously disappeared, his first impulse is to send for a detective
of some sort or other. In general, he might just as well send for his
mother-in-law. Of course, the police can and will watch the pawnshops
for the missing baubles, but no crook who is not a fool is going to
pawn a whole necklace on the Bowery the very next day after it has been
“lifted.” Or he can enlist a private detective who will question the
servants and perhaps go through their trunks, if they will let him.
Either sort will probably line up the inmates of the house for general
scrutiny and try to bully them separately into a confession. This may
save the master a disagreeable experience, but it is the simplest
sort of police work and is done vicariously for the taxpayer, just as
the public garbage man relieves you from the burden of taking out the
ashes yourself, because he is paid for it, not on account of your own
incapacity or his superiority. Which, speaking of garbage, reminds the
writer of a disconnected personal experience in which he endeavored to
enlist the services of one of these latter specialists for the purpose
of carrying a trunk on his wagon to the steamboat wharf.
“I’m sorry, sir,” replied the gentleman in question, “I ain’t used to
handling trunks. They ain’t in my line. But [proudly] _when it comes to
swill, I’m as good as anybody_!”
The real detective is the one who, taking up the solution of a crime or
other mystery, brings to bear upon it _unusual_ powers of observation
and deduction and an exceptional resourcefulness in acting upon his
conclusions. Frankly, I have known very few such, although for some
ten years I have made use of a large number of so-called detectives in
both public and private matters. As I recall the long line of cases
where these men have rendered service of great value, almost every one
resolves itself into a successful piece of mere spying or trailing.
Little ingenuity or powers of reason were required. Of course, there
are a thousand tricks that an experienced man acquires as a matter of
course, but which at first sight seem almost like inspiration. I shall
not forget my delight when Jesse Blocher, who had been trailing Charles
Foster Dodge through the South (when the latter was wanted as the chief
witness against Abe Hummel on the charge of subornation of perjury of
which he was finally convicted), told me how he instantly located his
man, without disclosing his own identity, by unostentatiously leaving
a note addressed to Dodge _in a bright-red envelope_ upon the office
counter of the Hotel St. Charles in New Orleans, where he knew his
quarry to be staying. A few moments later the clerk saw it, picked it
up, and, as a matter of course, thrust it promptly into box No. 420,
thus involuntarily hanging, as it were, a red lantern on Dodge’s door.
There is no more reason to look for superiority of intelligence or
mental alertness among detectives of the ordinary class than there is
to expect it from clerks, stationary engineers, plumbers, or firemen.
While comparisons are invidious, I should be inclined to say that
the ordinary chauffeur was probably a brighter man than the average
detective. This is not to be taken in derogation of the latter, but
as a compliment to the former. There is more reason why he should be.
There are a great many detectives of ambiguous training. I remember in
a celebrated case discovering that of the more important detectives
employed by a well-known private Anti-Criminal Society in New York, one
had been a street vender of frankfurters (otherwise yclept “hot dogs”),
and another the keeper of a bird store, which last perhaps qualified
him for the pursuit and capture of human game. There is a popular
fiction that lawyers are shrewd and capable, similar to the prevailing
one that detectives are astute and cunning in their methods. But, as
the head of one of the biggest agencies in the country remarked to me
the other day, when discussing the desirability of retaining local
counsel in a distant city: “By thunder! _You_ know how hard it is to
find a lawyer that isn’t a _dead one_.” I feel confident that he did
not mean this in the sense that there was no good lawyer except a dead
lawyer. What my detective friend probably had in mind was that it was
difficult to find a lawyer who brought to bear on a new problem any
originality of thought or action. It is even harder to find a detective
who is not in this sense a dead one. I have the feeling, being a lawyer
myself, that (for educational reasons probably) it is harder to find a
live detective than a live lawyer. There are a few of both, however, if
you know where to look for them. But it is easy to fall into the hands
of the Philistines.
The fundamental reason why it is so hard to form any just opinion of
detectives in general is that (except by their fruits) there is little
opportunity to discriminate between the able and the incapable. Now,
the more difficult and complicated his task the less likely is the
sleuth (honest or otherwise) to succeed. The chances are a good deal
more than even that he will never solve the mystery for which he is
engaged. Thus at the end of three months you will have only his reports
and his bill—which are poor comfort, to say the least. And yet he
may have really worked eighteen hours per day in your service. But
a dishonest detective has only to disappear (and take his ease for
the same period) and send you _his_ reports and _his_ bill—and you
will have only his word for how much work he has done and how much
money he has spent. You are absolutely in his power—unless you hire
another _detective_ to watch _him_. Consequently there is no class in
the world where the temptation to dishonesty is greater than among
detectives—not even among plumbers, cabmen, butchers, and lawyers.
(God knows the peril of all of these!) This, too, is, I fancy, the
reason that the evidence of the police detective is received with so
much suspicion by jurymen—they know that the only way for him to
retain his position is by making a record and getting convictions,
and hence they are always looking for jobs and frame-ups. If a police
detective doesn’t make arrests and send a man to jail every once in a
while there is no conclusive way for his superiors to be sure he isn’t
loafing.
There are a very large number of persons who go into the detective
business for the same reason that others enter the ministry—they can’t
make a living at anything else. Provided he has squint eyes and a dark
complexion, almost anybody feels that he is qualified to unravel the
tangled threads of crime. The first resource of the superannuated or
discharged police detective is to start an agency. Of course, he may be
first class in spite of these disqualifications, but the presumption
in the first instance is that he is no longer alert or effective, and
in the second that in one way or another he is not honest. Agencies
recruited from deposed and other ex-policemen usually have all the
faults of the police without any of their virtues. There are many small
agencies which do reliable work, and there are a number of private
detectives in all the big cities who work single-handed and achieve
excellent results. However, if he expects to accomplish anything by
hiring detectives, the layman or lawyer must first make sure of his
agency or his man.
One other feature of the detective business should not be overlooked.
In addition to charging for services not actually rendered and expenses
not actually incurred, there is in many cases a strong temptation to
betray the interests of the employer. A private detective may, and
usually does, become possessed of information even more valuable to
the person who is being watched than to the person to whom he owes his
allegiance. Unreliable rascals constantly sell out to the other side
and play both ends against the middle. In this they resemble some of
the famous diplomatic agents of history. And police detectives employed
to run down criminals and protect society have been known instead to
act as stalls for bank burglars and (for a consideration) to assist
them to dispose of their booty and protect them from arrest and
capture. It has repeatedly happened that reliable private detectives
have discovered that the police employed upon the same case have in
reality been tipping off the criminals as to what was being done and
coaching them as to their conduct. Of course the natural jealousy
existing between official and unofficial agents of the law leads to a
good many unfounded accusations of this character, but, on the other
hand, the fact that much of the most effective police work is done
by employing professional criminals to secure information and act
as stool-pigeons often results in a definite understanding that the
latter shall be themselves protected in the quiet enjoyment of their
labors. The relations of the regular police to crime, however, and the
general subject of police graft have little place in a chapter of this
character.
The first question that usually arises is whether a detective shall
or shall not be employed at all in any particular case. Usually the
most important thing is to find out what the real character, past, and
associations of some particular individual may be. Well-established
detective agencies with offices throughout the country are naturally in
a better position to acquire such information quickly than the private
individual or lawyer, since they are on the spot and have an organized
staff containing the right sort of men for the work. If the information
lies in your own city you can probably hire some one to get it or
ferret it out yourself quite as well, and much more cheaply, than by
employing their services. The leads are few and generally simple. The
subject’s past employers and business associates, his landlords and
landladies, his friends and enemies, and his milkman must be run down
and interrogated. Perhaps his personal movements must be watched. Any
intelligent fellow who is out of a job will do this for you for about
$5 per day and expenses. The agencies usually charge from $6 to $8
(and up), and prefer two men to one, as a matter of convenience and
to make sure that the subject is fully covered. If the suspect is on
the move and trains or steamships must be met, you have practically no
choice but to employ a national agency. It alone has the proper plant
and equipment for the work. In an emergency, organization counts more
than anything else. Where time is of the essence, the individual has no
opportunity to hire his own men or start an organization of his own.
But if the matter is one where there is plenty of leisure to act, you
can usually do your own detective work better and cheaper than any one
else.
Regarding the work of the detective as a spy (which probably
constitutes seventy-five per cent of his employment to-day), few
persons realize how widely such services are being utilized. The
insignificant old Irishwoman who stumbles against you in the department
store is possibly watching with her cloudy but eagle eye for
shoplifters. The tired-looking man on the street-car may, in fact, be
a professional “spotter.” The stout youth with the _pince-nez_ who
is examining the wedding presents is perhaps a central-office man. All
this you know or may suspect. But you are not so likely to be aware
that the floor-walker himself is the agent of a rival concern placed in
the department store to keep track, not only of prices but of whether
or not the wholesalers are living up to their agreements in regard to
the furnishing of particular kinds of goods only to one house; or that
the conductor on the car is a paid detective of the company, whose
principal duty is not to collect fares, but to report the doings of the
unions; or that the gentleman who is accidentally introduced to you at
the wedding breakfast is employed by a board of directors to get a line
on your host’s business associates and social companions.
In the great struggle between capital and labor, each side has expended
large sums of money in employing confederates to secure secret
information as to the plans and doings of the enemy. Almost every labor
union has its Judas, and many a secretary to a capitalist is in the
secret employment of a labor union. The railroads must be kept informed
of what is going on, and, if necessary, they import a man from another
part of the country to join the local organization. Often such men, on
account of their force and intelligence, are elected to high office in
the brotherhoods whose secrets they are hired to betray. Practically
every big manufacturing plant in the United States has on its pay-rolls
men acting as engineers, foremen, or laborers who are drawing from $80
to $100 per month as detectives either (1) to keep their employers
informed as to the workings of the labor unions, (2) to report to the
directors the actual conduct of the business by its salaried officers,
superintendents, and overseers, or (3) to ascertain and report to
outside competing concerns the methods and processes made use of, the
materials utilized, and the exact cost of production.
There are detectives among the chambermaids and bellboys in the hotels,
and also among the guests; there are detectives on the passenger lists
and in the cardrooms of the Atlantic liners; the colored porter on the
private car, the butler at your friend’s house, the chorus girl on
Broadway, the clerk in the law office, the employee in the commercial
agency, may all be drawing pay in the interest of some one else,
who may be either a transportation company, a stock-broker, a rival
financier, a yellow newspaper, an injured or even an erring wife, a
grievance committee, or a competing concern; and the duties of these
persons may and will range from the theft of mailing-lists, books, and
papers, and (in the case of the newspaper) of private letters, up to
genuine detective work requiring some real ability.
Apart from the hired thieves above referred to, some yellow journals
employ men to work upon the various “mystery stories” that from time to
time arouse the attention of the public, who often accomplish as good
results as the police. I should, however, place one limitation upon
this general statement, which is that, as the object of the newspaper
is usually quite as much to keep the story alive as to solve the
mystery, the papers are apt to find startling significance in details
of slight importance. While we are speaking of newspapers, it may not
be out of place to suggest that their activity is such that there are
few general evils left undisclosed and few prominent men the privacy
of whose lives is not known in the editorial rooms. When lurid tales
are told of the secret doings of Mr. So-and-So and the Hon. This and
That, you may rest assured that the greater the desirability of those
yarns as copy for the big dailies, the less likely they are to have
any foundation in fact. The eye of the city editor is in every place
discerning the evil if not the good. Indeed, it is almost unnecessary
for the papers to hire spies, since self-constituted ones are ready at
any moment to bargain with them for stolen goods and ruined reputations.
Detective work of the sort which involves the betrayal of confidences
and friendships naturally excites our aversion—yet in many cases the
end undoubtedly justifies the means employed, and often there is no
other way to avert disaster and prevent fiendish crimes. Sometimes, on
the other hand, the information sought is purely for mercenary or even
less worthy reasons, and those engaged in these undertakings range from
rascals of the lowest type to men who are ready to risk death for the
cause which they represent and who are really heroes of a high order.
One of the latter with whom I happened to be thrown professionally was
a young fellow of about twenty named Guthrie.
It was during a great strike, and outrages were being committed all
over the city of New York by dynamiters supposed to be in the employ
of the unions. Young Guthrie, who was a reckless dare-devil, offered
his services to the employers, and agreed (for a trifling compensation)
to join one of the local unions and try to find out who were the men
blowing up office buildings in process of construction and otherwise
terrorizing the inhabitants of the city. The story of his success
deserves a chapter by itself, and it is enough here to state that he
applied for membership in the organization, and by giving evidence
of his courage and fiber managed to secure a place as a volunteer in
the dynamiting squad. So cleverly did he pass himself off as a bitter
enemy of capital that he was entrusted with secrets of the utmost
value and took part in making the plans and procuring the dynamite to
execute them. The quality of his nerve (as well as his foolhardiness)
is shown by the fact that he once carried a dress-suit case full of
the explosive around the city, jumping on and off street cars, and
dodging vehicles. When the proper moment came and the dynamite had been
placed in an uncompleted building on Twenty-second Street, Guthrie
gave the signal and the police arrested the dynamiters—all of them,
including Guthrie, who was placed with the rest in a cell in the Tombs
and continued to report to the district attorney all the information
which he thus secured from his unsuspecting associates. Indeed, it
was hard to convince the authorities that Guthrie was a spy and not
a mere accomplice who had turned State’s evidence, a distinction of
far-reaching legal significance so far as his evidence was concerned.
The final episode in the drama was the unearthing by the police of
Hoboken of the secret cache of the dynamiters, containing a large
quantity of the explosive. Guthrie’s instructions as to how they should
find it read like a page from Poe’s “Gold Bug.” You had to go at night
to a place where a lonely road crossed the Erie Railroad tracks in the
Hackensack meadows, and mark the spot where the shadow of a telegraph
pole (cast by an arc light) fell on a stone wall. This you must climb
and walk so many paces north, turn and go so many feet west, and then
north again. You then came to a white stone, from which you laid your
course through more latitude and longitude until you were right over
the spot. The police of Hoboken did as directed, and after tacking
round and round the field, _found the dynamite_. Of course, the union
said the whole thing was a plant, and that Guthrie had put the dynamite
in the field himself at the instigation of his employers, but before
the case came to trial both dynamiters pleaded guilty and went to Sing
Sing. One of them turned out to be an ex-convict, a burglar. I often
wonder where Guthrie is now. He certainly cared little for his life.
Perhaps he is down in Venezuela or Mexico. He could never be aught than
a soldier of fortune. But for a long time the employers thought that
Guthrie was a detective sent by the unions to compromise _them_ in the
very dynamiting they were trying to stop!
I once had a particularly dangerous and unfortunate case where a
private client was being blackmailed by a half-crazy ruffian who had
never seen him, but had selected him arbitrarily, as a person likely to
give up money. The blackmailer was a German Socialist, who was out of
employment—a man of desperate character. He had made up his mind that
the world owed him a living, and he had decided that the easiest way
to get it was to make some more prosperous person give him a thousand
dollars under threat of being exposed as an enemy of society.
The charge was so absurd as to be almost ludicrous, but had my client
caused the blackmailer’s arrest the matter would have been the subject
of endless newspaper notoriety and comment. It was therefore thought
wise to make use of other means, and I procured the assistance
of a young German-American of my acquaintance, who, in the guise
of a vaudeville artist seeking a job, went to the blackmailer’s
boarding-house and pretended to be looking for an actor friend with a
name not unlike that of the criminal.
After two or three visits he managed to scrape an acquaintance with
the blackmailer and thereafter spent much time with him. Both were out
of work, both were Germans, and both liked beer. My friend had just
enough money to satisfy this latter craving. In a month or so they were
intimate friends and used to go _fishing_ together down the bay. At
last, after many months, the criminal disclosed to the detective his
plan of blackmailing my client, and suggested that as two heads were
better than one they had better make it a joint venture. The detective
pretended to balk at the idea at first, but was finally persuaded,
and at the other’s request undertook the delivery of the blackmailing
letters to my client! Inside of three weeks he had in his possession
enough evidence in the criminal’s _own handwriting_ to send him to
prison for the rest of his life. When at last the detective disclosed
his identity the blackmailer at first refused to believe him, and then
literally rolled on the floor in his agony and fear at discovering how
he had been hoodwinked. The next day he disappeared and has not been
heard of since, but his letters are in my vault, ready to be used if he
again puts in an appearance.
The records of the police and of the private agencies contain many
instances where murderers have confessed their guilt long after the
crime to supposed friends, who were in reality decoys placed there
for that very purpose. It is a peculiarity of criminals that they
cannot keep their secrets locked in their own breasts. The impulse
to confession is universal, particularly in women. Egotism has some
part in this, but the chief element is the desire for companionship.
Criminals have a horror of dying under an alias. The dignity of
identity appeals even to the tramp. This impulse leads oftentimes to
the most unnecessary and suicidal disclosures. The murderer who has
planned and executed a diabolical homicide and who has retired to
obscurity and safety will very likely in course of time make a clean
breast of it to some one whom he believes to be his friend. He wants
to “get it off his chest,” to talk it over, to discuss its fine points,
to boast of how clever he was, to ask for unnecessary advice about his
conduct in the future, to have at least one other person in the world
who has seen his soul’s nakedness.
The interesting feature of such confessions from a legal point of view
is that, no matter how circumstantial they may be, they are not usually
of themselves sufficient under our law to warrant a conviction. The
admission or confession of a defendant needs legal corroboration. This
corroboration is often very difficult to find, and frequently cannot
be secured at all. This provision of the statutes is doubtless a wise
one to prevent hysterical, suicidal, egotistical, and semi-insane
persons from meeting death in the electric chair or on the gallows, but
it often results in the guilty going unpunished. Personally, I have
never known a criminal to _confess_ a crime of which he was innocent.
The nearest thing to it in my experience is when one criminal, jointly
guilty with another and sure of conviction, has drawn lots with his
pal, lost, confessed, and in the confession exculpated his companion.
In the police organization of almost every large city there are a few
men who are genuinely gifted for the work of detection. Such an one
was Petrosino, a great detective, and an honest, unselfish, and heroic
man, who united indefatigable patience and industry with reasoning
powers of a high order. The most thrilling evening of my life was when
my wife and I listened before a crackling fire in my library to Joe’s
story of the Van Cortlandt Park murder, the night before I was going to
prosecute the case. Sitting stiffly in an arm-chair, his great, ugly
moon-face expressionless save for an occasional flash from his black
eyes, Petrosino recounted slowly and accurately how, by means of a
single slip of paper bearing the penciled name “Sabbatto Gizzi, P. O.
Box 239, Lambertville, N. J.,” he had run down the unknown murderer of
an unknown Italian stabbed to death in the park’s shrubbery. The paper
contained neither the name of the criminal nor his victim, but by means
of this slender clue he had gone to Lambertville and found an Italian
who had identified the deceased as a man who had left Lambertville for
New York in the company of another Italian named Strollo. Petrosino
interviewed Strollo, who admitted the trip but denied any knowledge of
his companion’s death. He had, he said, turned him over to his brother,
for whom Strollo had been searching.
In Strollo’s pocket Petrosino found a letter to the brother _from_
Tony Torsielli, the murdered man. It was in Strollo’s own handwriting
and enclosed in an envelope _addressed to Torsielli himself_ at
Lambertville. This envelope bore a red two-cent stamp. On the basis of
this letter, aided by Strollo’s contradictory statements, Petrosino
reconstructed the murder and demonstrated that there _was_ no brother,
that Strollo had _invented_ him for the purpose of luring Torsielli to
New York, and that he had acted as amanuensis for Torsielli and carried
on the correspondence for both. The envelope addressed in Strollo’s
handwriting _to Torsielli at Lambertville_ was the key to the whole
mystery. There was no reason why Strollo should be writing to his own
friend whom he saw daily and who lived beside him in the same town.
Neither, argued Petrosino, would there be any reason for putting on a
_two-cent_ stamp in a place so small as to have no mail delivery. Ergo,
the envelope must have been intended to create the impression that it
had been mailed from some other place, by another person—from whom but
the fictitious brother? Bit by bit Petrosino built up a case entirely
out of circumstantial evidence that demonstrated Strollo’s guilt to a
mathematical certainty. So vivid was Petrosino’s account of his labors
that in opening the case next day to the jury I had but to repeat the
story I had heard the night before. Strollo was convicted after a
week’s trial before Judge O’Gorman in the Criminal Term of the Supreme
Court and paid the penalty of his treachery in the electric chair. For
him I felt not one pang of pity or remorse.
But during the preparation for the case the function of the detective
as a decoy was demonstrated in a most effective manner. Strollo was
confined in the House of Detention and a detective from head-quarters
was introduced there as an ostensible prisoner, under the name of
Silvio. Strollo and he became great friends, and when the former was
removed to the Tombs the murderer wrote elaborately to the detective,
requesting him to testify as a witness at the trial on his behalf and
instructing him what to say in order to establish an alibi. Those
letters were the last nails in Strollo’s coffin. After his conviction
they were stolen by somebody and could not be included in the case on
appeal, for which reason the court had some doubt as to whether the
conviction should be affirmed. Before the Court of Appeals rendered its
decision, however, I found, while cleaning out my safe, photographs of
the letters which I had had taken as a precautionary measure, but the
existence of which I had forgotten. I now have every important document
that comes into my hands as evidence photographed as a matter of course.
Petrosino’s physical characteristics were so pronounced that he was
probably as widely, if not more widely, known than any other Italian in
New York. He was short and heavy, with enormous shoulders and a bull
neck, on which was placed a great round head like a summer squash. His
face was pock-marked, and he talked with a deliberation that was due to
his desire for accuracy, but which at times might have been suspected
to arise from some other cause. He rarely smiled and went methodically
about his business, which was to drive the Italian criminals out of
the city and country. Of course, being a marked man in more senses
than one, it was practically impossible to disguise himself, and,
accordingly, he had to rely upon his own investigations and detective
powers, supplemented by the efforts of the trained men in the Italian
branch, many of whom are detectives of a high order of ability. If the
life of Petrosino were to be written, it would be a book unique in the
history of criminology and crime, for this man was probably the only
great detective of the world to find his career in a foreign country
amid criminals of his own race.
I have instanced Petrosino as an example of a police detective of a
very unusual type, but I have known several other men on the New York
Police Force of real genius in their own particular lines of work. One
of these is an Irishman who makes a specialty of get-rich-quick men,
oil and mining stock operators, wire-tappers and their kin, and who
knows the antecedents and history of most of them better than any other
man in the country. He is ready to take the part of either a “sucker”
or a fellow crook, as the exigencies of the case may demand.
And then there was old Tom Byrnes, of whom everybody knows. 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 élite 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.
The head-quarters man has no time nor inclination to follow the
sporting duchess and the fictitious earl who accompanies her in
their picturesque wanderings around the world. He is busy inside the
confines of his own country. Parents or children may disappear,
but the mere seeking of oblivion on their part is no crime and
does not concern him except by special dispensation on the part of
his superiors. Divorced couples may steal their own children back
and forward, royalties may inadvertently involve themselves with
undesirables, governmental information exude from State portals in
a peculiar manner, business secrets pass into the hands of rivals,
race-horses develop strange and untimely diseases, husbands take long
and mysterious trips from home—a thousand exciting and worrying things
may happen to the astonishment, distress, or intense interest of
nations, governments, political parties, or private individuals, which
from their very nature are outside the purview of the regular police.
Here, then, is the field of the secret agent or private detective, and
here, forsooth, is where the detective of genuine deductive powers and
the polished address of the so-called “man of the world” is required.
There are two classes of cases where a private detective must needs
be used, if indeed any professional assistance is to be called in:
first, where the person whose identity is sought to be discovered or
whose activities are sought to be terminated is not a criminal or
has committed no crime, and second, where, though a crime has been
committed, the injured parties cannot afford to undertake a public
prosecution.
For example, if you are receiving anonymous letters, the writer of
which accuses you of all sorts of unpleasant things, you would, of
course, much prefer to find out who it is and stop him quietly than
to turn over the correspondence to the police and let the writer’s
attorneys publicly cross-examine you at his trial as to your past
career. Even if a diamond necklace is stolen from a family living on
Fifth Avenue, there is more than an even chance that the owner will
prefer to conceal her loss rather than to have her picture in the
morning paper. Yet she will wish to find the necklace if she can.
When the matter has no criminal side at all, the police cannot be
availed of, although we sometimes read that the officers of the local
precinct have spent many hours in trying to locate Mrs. So-and-So’s
lost Pomeranian, or in performing other functions of an essentially
private nature—most generously. But if, for example, your daughter is
made the recipient, almost daily, of anonymous gifts of jewelry which
arrive by mail, express, or messenger, and you are anxious to discover
the identity of her admirer and return them, you will probably wish to
engage outside assistance.
Where will you seek it? You can do one of two things: go to a big
agency and secure the services of the _right man_, or engage such a
man outside who may or may not be a professional detective. I have
frequently utilized with success in peculiar and difficult cases the
services of men whom I knew to be common-sense persons, with a natural
taste for ferreting out mysteries, but who were not detectives at all.
Your head book-keeper may have real talents in this direction—if he
is not above using them. Naturally, the first essential is brains—and
if you can give the time to the matter, your own head will probably be
the best one for your purposes. If, then, you are willing to undertake
the job yourself, all you need is some person or persons to carry out
your instructions, and such are by no means difficult to find. I have
had many a case run down by my own office force—clerks, lawyers, and
stenographers, all taking a turn at it. Why not? Is the professional
sleuth working on a fixed salary for a regular agency and doing a dozen
different jobs each month as likely to bring to bear upon your own
private problem as much intelligence as you yourself?
There is no mystery about such work, except what the detective himself
sees fit to enshroud it with. Most of us do detective work all the
time without being conscious of it. Simply because the matter concerns
the theft of a pearl, or the betraying of a business or professional
secret, or the disappearance of a friend, the opinion of a stranger
becomes no more valuable. And the chances are equal that the stranger
will make a bungle of it.
Many of the best available detectives are men who work by themselves
without any permanent staff, and who have their own regular clients,
generally law firms and corporations. Almost any attorney knows several
such, and the chief advantage of employing one of them lies in the
fact that you can learn just what their abilities are by personal
experience. They usually command a high rate of remuneration, but
deductive ability and resourcefulness are so rare that they are
at a premium and can only be secured by paying it. These men are
able, if necessary, to assume the character of a doctor, traveller,
man-about-town, or business agent without wearing in their lapels a
sign that they are detectives, and they will reason ahead of the other
fellow and can sometimes calculate pretty closely what he will do.
Twenty-five dollars a day will generally hire the best of them, and
they are well worth it.
The detective business swarms with men of doubtful honesty and morals,
who are under a constant temptation to charge for services not rendered
and expenses not incurred, who are accustomed to exaggeration if not
to perjury, and who have neither the inclination nor the ability to do
competent work.
Once they get their clutches on a wealthy client, they resemble the
shyster lawyer in their efforts to bleed him by stimulating his fears
of publicity and by holding out false hopes of success, and thus
prolonging their period of service. An unscrupulous detective will,
almost as a matter of course, work on two jobs at once and charge
_all_ his time to each client. He will constantly report progress when
nothing has been accomplished, and his expenses will fill pages of his
notebook. Meantime his daily reports will fall like a shower of autumn
leaves. In no profession is it more essential to know the man who is
working for you. If you need a detective, get the best you can find,
put a limit on the expense, and give him your absolute confidence.