CHAPTER V.
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.