MAKING A DETECTIVE.
The detective net drawn round London is close and complete. Within the
last two or three years the headquarters staff at Scotland Yard has
completely changed, although there is no man with less than twenty
years' service among the five chief detective-inspectors who act as Mr.
McCarthy's chief-lieutenants.
These are the men who meet in special council when some great crime
stirs London, and whose wits are bent to aid the active efforts of those
deputed for the actual investigation. With them at Scotland Yard are
some seventy or eighty subordinate detectives. Crime that affects London
as a whole is usually dealt with direct from headquarters.
Every division of police in London has its detective detachment of from
twelve to thirty men under divisional inspectors. Except in a very few
of the outlying rural districts of London, there is no police station
without one or more detectives. They are expected to hold local crime in
check. But the machine is adaptable to contingencies. The "morning
report of crime" sent to headquarters shows daily the ebb and flow of
crime. A sudden wave of burglaries, for instance, might be met by
reinforcements from another district or from the Yard itself.
Twice a month the big Council of Crime meets--a gathering at New
Scotland Yard at which thirty or forty of the senior detectives of the
metropolis, heads of districts, and headquarters men meet in conference
and compare notes. The movements of criminals are checked, particular
mysteries discussed. A. is puzzled by certain peculiarities in a robbery
at Hampstead; B. remembers that similar peculiarities were present in an
affair in which he arrested Bill Smith, at Brixton, some years ago.
Resolved unanimously that Bill's recent movements will bear looking
into. Opinions will be discussed of the identity of a swindler who has
been duping furniture dealers by selling them furniture from houses or
flats he has rented. Many a fraud has been detected by these informal
discussions in that bare green-painted room.
One of the greatest difficulties that beset a detective of real life--it
does not so much affect the detective of fiction--is the securing of
evidence that is legally convincing. It is one thing to be morally
certain of a person's guilt; it is quite another thing to prove it to
the satisfaction of a jury. Especially is this so in case of murder.
There is probably no other great city in the world which can boast of no
murder mystery in which for two years the perpetrator remained
undiscovered.
There were twenty-five cases of murder in 1913--the last year for which
figures are available--and twenty-four in 1912. In each one, in 1912,
the guilty person was known. The 1913 cases were thus disposed of.
Eleven arrests were made--one of a man who committed two murders--and in
nine the murderers committed suicide. Three of the other cases were
caused through illegal operations, which were not immediately reported
to the police. The remaining case was that of an Italian who fled
abroad.
The real detective is a common-place man--common-place in the sense that
you would not pick him out of a crowd for what he is. He assiduously
avoids mannerisms. You will find him genial rather than mysterious. He
does not wear policeman's boots, and he is not always weaving a subtle
network of deductions. He is a plain business man of shrewd common-sense
who has been carefully trained to take the quickest and most accurate
way to a desired end. You can almost fancy him drawing up an
advertisement:
"Criminals (assorted) for disposal. Large selection always available.
Special orders executed at the shortest notice. Apply Criminal
Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard, S.W."
And on occasion he takes, so to speak, your burglar, your pickpocket, or
your forger off the shelf, carefully dusts his label, and dispatches
him, carriage paid, with a neat parcels note, for conveyance to his
ultimate destination by the old-established firm of transport agents in
the Old Bailey.
The London detective grows up in an atmosphere of business. Romance,
adventure are incidental--and rare. Before he can bring off any big coup
he has thoroughly to understand the handling of the big machine of which
he forms part. And above all he must have courage--not merely physical
courage, but a courage that will assume big responsibility in an instant
of stress.
Melville, sometime of the Special Branch, for instance, once committed a
flagrant illegality when he decoyed a dangerous Anarchist into a wine
cellar and locked him in while a great personage was passing through
London. And Mr. Frank Froest, when he snatched a noted embezzler from
the Argentine after all attempts to obtain his extradition had failed,
gave an example of the same kind of courage. Another detective, in a
case where the body of a murdered man had been hidden, did not hesitate
to arrest the murderer on the flimsy charge of "being in unlawful
possession of a pickaxe" to prevent flight while he continued his
search. In each case these men deliberately adopted risks to attain
their ends which nothing but success could warrant.
There are 650 men attached to the Criminal Investigation Department, and
they have all learned their trade by tedious degrees. They all started,
even the superintendents at their head, as constables on street duty.
Consider the precautions that are taken in recruiting the department.
The candidate has passed the stringent tests of character and physique
applied to all metropolitan police officers. He has been watched, with
unostentatious vigilance, for defects of temperament or intelligence. A
few months he has on street duty in uniform, and then he may apply for
transfer to the C.I.D. He may be recommended then by his divisional
superiors to Mr. McCarthy--the blonde blue-eyed Irishman who rules the
Central C.I.D.--who himself interviews and makes a rapid judgment of the
aspirant before he is passed on to an examining board of two veteran
chief detective-inspectors sitting with a Chief Constable. Some of the
questions he will be expected to answer run like this: "How may you
utilise the photographs of persons suspected of crime, and what
precautions would you take?" "What is meant by a 'special enquiry'?"
"Give examples of the use special enquiries can be put to in detecting
offenders against the law."
These examinations, it may be said, are compulsory at every step in
promotion in the detective service, in addition to educational
examinations carried out independently by the Civil Service
Commissioners. Here is a question put at an examination for promotion to
detective-sergeant which might form the skeleton of a detective story.
"A night-watchman, in going his rounds, discovers two men attempting to
break open a safe on the premises. Both men make good their escape by a
window, but one of them receives a blow on the head from the watchman
which causes blood to flow, while the other leaves his jacket behind.
"The watchman can give a fair description of the men. In the jacket left
behind, which bears no maker's name, are found the following:--(1) A
return-half ticket to Birmingham from London; (2) A snapshot of a lady
having the appearance of a music hall performer, signed 'Kitty,' but
with no photographer's name; (3) a letter (no envelope) as follows:--
"King Street.
'DEAR TOM.--I hope you are coming up on Tuesday. Things are bad
here since Bill got his three months.
'MARY.'
"State as fully as you can what steps you suggest should be taken to
trace the offenders. How could the articles found be made use of in the
enquiry?"
The preliminary examination is only the first step. The young man who
passes finds himself a "patrol on probation," with the knowledge that if
he does not justify himself he will be returned to the blue-coated
ranks. He is put to school again--the little-known detective school that
is maintained at Scotland Yard, with Detective-Inspector Belcher at its
head. There are lectures on law, and even lantern lectures. He is taught
the methods of criminals, from gambling sharps to forgers, from
pickpockets to petty sneak-thieves. The Black Museum primarily exists
for his instruction. He is shown jemmies, coining implements,
shop-lifting devices, and the latest word in the march of scientific
burglary--the oxy-acetylene apparatus. All that ingenuity and experience
can suggest for the confusion of the criminal is taught him. He is shown
where an expert must be called in, and where his own common-sense must
aid him. He is taught something of locks, something of finger-prints,
something of cipher-reading. He learns the significance of trivialities,
and the high importance of method.
I have said that the detective must know when to call in the expert.
Science plays no inconspicuous part in many investigations, and there is
a little corps of consulting specialists whose aid is always available.
It was the work of the analyst that proved the guilt of men like Seddon
and Crippen. The microscopist has brought more than one forger to
justice. A murder was proved because a tool-maker's aid was enlisted to
decipher some scratches on a chisel. A blackmailer was captured because
a paper manufacturer identified a peculiar make of paper on which a
letter was written. And, of course, the help of the medical jurisprudent
is a commonplace of criminal investigation.
The finger-print experts are on the staff; so, too, are the
photographers. There is a big magic lantern used in connection with the
latter department which has made clear more than one mystery by the
enlargement of some photograph. In one case an envelope with a blurred
post-mark was picked up on the scene of a robbery. It was enlarged, and
so the name of a town was picked out. In an hour or two the criminal was
under arrest.