CHAPTER VI.
More about Investigation.
Outside fiction, the real detective does not disguise himself in any elaborate or melodramatic fashion. He will not wear a false moustache or a wig, for instance. But the beginner is taught how a difference in dressing the hair, the combing out or waxing of a moustache, the substitution of a muffler for a collar, a cap for a bowler will alter his appearance. They keep a "make-up" room at headquarters, its most conspicuous feature being a photograph of a group of dirty-looking ruffians—detectives in disguise. But it is a disguise the more impenetrable because there is nothing that can go wrong with it. Yet not half a dozen times in a year is the make-up room used.
The kind of case in which a disguise is useful may be illustrated. Some thieves had broken into St. George's Cathedral, at Southwark, and then rifled the Bishop's Palace. The booty they secured was worth some three thousand pounds, and they left not the faintest trace behind. The officer charged with the investigation resolved on a long shot. He dressed himself—I quote a newspaper report—"in a long overcoat and slouched hat, sported a heavy chain, smoked a big cigar, and was well supplied with gold." In this attire he made himself conspicuous about Vauxhall. Among the "crooks" of that neighbourhood, it soon became known that a Jew receiver—one Cohen, of Brick Lane, Whitechapel—was about, and in a very short while the "receiver" knew all that he needed to arrest the thieves and recover the stolen property.
"Shadowing," too, is a matter of experience. Let anyone who doubts its difficulties try the experiment of keeping sight of a person in a frequented thoroughfare. When a suspect knows or guesses he is being followed—as he inevitably does, if it is continued for a day or two—it becomes ten times more difficult. Unless incessant watchfulness is maintained, a shadowed person will be lost sight of in five minutes. Shadowing is, when possible, always done by detectives in pairs, sometimes in threes. Detective No. 1 shadows the suspect, detective No. 2 shadows his colleague. Then if the suspect stops or turns suddenly No. 1 walks innocently on and No. 2 takes up the chase. It is a wearisome task when a person has to be watched incessantly, for it may not be possible to assign a spot with any certainty for reliefs to continue the trail.
When the young detective begins his career he will carry a virgin drab-coloured diary in his breast pocket, wherein he will be expected to record every moment spent on duty, every penny he spends. If any illusion remains in his mind that he will be turned loose on the streets to catch thieves or murderers, it is quickly destroyed. Hard labour is his portion. Small enquiries at pawnbrokers', searching directories to verify addresses, running errands for his superiors, and doing all the small odd jobs are his immediate concern.
Only now and again is he called upon to play a minor part in an arrest. But all the while he will be learning and improving his acquaintance with the thieves in his district. All his painfully acquired knowledge goes for little unless he can cultivate a certain friendship with the rogues in the vicinity of his sphere of duty.
The "informant" plays a big part in the workings of Scotland Yard. If the old phrase, "Honour among thieves," had any truth in it, London would be a poor place for honest men to live in. But gossip of the underworld is easily attainable to ears that wish to catch it.
One of the problems which beset the architect of New Scotland Yard was this same problem of the informant. An inconspicuous entrance had to be arranged by which access could be unobtrusively gained by a person too shy to be seen walking publicly up the main entrance of the headquarters of police.
A great detective once told the writer how, in his early days, he set to work to learn the world, and gained valuable acquaintance with the deliberation that a young student might apply to the pursuit of an exact science. He took a room in Jermyn Street, and began his studies in every moment he could spare off duty. "I haunted night clubs; I went to gambling houses; I was a frequenter of any resort where one was likely to meet rogues or tricksters. I stored my memory with faces, and made myself friendly with all sorts of people—waiters, barmen, and hall-porters. So it was that I got hints that I should never have got by any other method, and scores of times, years afterwards, I received information from the channels I had formed when I began. To show the value of some of these acquaintances I may tell you that when some idea of my identity leaked out at one of these clubs an American crook—he was drunk—declared openly that he would shoot me at sight. The waiter contrived to draw the cartridges from his revolver, and to give me a hint as I entered. And sure enough my man stood up, took aim, and pulled the trigger of the empty weapon. I hit him on the jaw, and let it rest at that. But if I hadn't treated that waiter right, I might have been a dead man now."
The personal factor is an important one in dealing with informants. There is not very often ill-feeling between criminals and detectives. A slight straining of red-tape will sometimes have wide-reaching results. A detective, conveying a prisoner from Liverpool to London, offered the latter a cigar. "You're a good sort," exclaimed the man impulsively. "Tell you what; I'm in for it, I know. But I can do you a bit of good. It was X. and Z. who did that Hatton Garden business." And so was provided a clue to an apparently insoluble mystery.
At the end of three months, the probationer, if he has qualified, finds himself a fully-fledged "detective-patrol." Thereafter he has to pass an examination whenever he is promoted, and may pass upwards through the grades of third, second, and first class detective-sergeants to second, first, and divisional inspector, and even eventually to chief detective-inspector.
The everyday duties of the C.I.D. are legion. There are "Informations" passing between headquarters and the different stations daily, almost hourly. Stolen property has to be traced, pawnbrokers visited, convicts on licence watched, reports made, inquiries conducted by request of provincial police forces. It means hard, painstaking work from morning to night.
As I have said, so far as is consistent with his duty, a man keeps on good terms with those criminals he knows. It is a point of policy. They know that the average detective does not wish them harm. If he has to arrest them they know he will be scrupulously fair when it comes to giving evidence. Often a detective will help a man out of his own pocket when he knows that a case is really a necessitous one. He has no animus against any person he arrests. His duty is merely to place in safe custody the person he believes to be responsible for a breach of the law. Conviction or acquittal matters nothing to him after that. He has done his duty.
A wide knowledge of human nature is necessary to his calling, and he never forgets that the power of a police officer has its limitations. A man who brings discredit or ridicule on the department has a short-lived official life.
There is another part of the Criminal Investigation Department which has duties entirely distinct from that of the main body of detectives. That is the Special Branch, under Superintendent Quinn, M.V.O.—a section which, with the war, has suddenly become of great importance, for it has now largely to do with the spy peril. Of its methods and organisation little can be said, for obvious reasons.
In ordinary times it concerns itself solely with the protection of high personages, from the King and Queen and Cabinet Ministers to distinguished foreign visitors. The Special Branch in the days of suffragette outrages was the chief foe of the vote-seekers. It deals, too, with all political offences which need investigation.
There is a special squad of officers who deal with the white slave traffic. These are assisted by a lady appointed by the Home Office. She makes enquiries from women and children where victims might be reluctant to confide in a man, and has other similar duties.
The department is practically self-contained, working side by side with the uniform branch under its own officers. The point of contact is at superintendents of divisions, who exercise a supervising control.