Most of the prominent detectives of to-day learnt their work under Williamson—Butcher, the chief inspector, who is as fond of flowers as was his master, and may be known by the fine rose in his buttonhole; Littlechild, who earned his first reputation in unravelling and exposing long-firm and assurance office frauds; Neald, the curator of the Black Museum, a sturdy, self-reliant, solid detective officer, who, among other great cases, worked to a successful issue the “Orrock” murder, in which the syllable “rock” scratched upon a chisel led ultimately to detection.
The exposure of the detectives’ misdeeds in 1876 brought a superior official to Scotland Yard, and the first head of the newly named Criminal Investigation Department was Colonel Howard Vincent. His appointment was a surprise to many, and his fitness for the post was not immediately apparent. He was young, comparatively speaking, unknown, inexperienced in police matters, with no previous record but a brief military service, followed by a call to the Bar. But he was energetic, painstaking, a man of order, with some power of organisation; above all, a gentleman of high character and integrity. His reign at Scotland Yard may not have been marked by any phenomenal feats in detection; in the pursuit of criminals he was dependent upon his able subordinates, and it was his rule to summon the most experienced of them to advise him in all serious cases. In the more subtle processes of analysis and deduction, of working from effect to cause, from vague, almost impalpable indications to strong presumption of guilt, Howard Vincent did not shine; nor did he always, perhaps, fully realise the value of reticence in detective operations; but he did good work at Scotland Yard by raising the general tone and systematising the service.
Dr. Anderson, who was chief of the Investigation Department until 1901, when he resigned, was an ideal detective officer, with a natural bias for the work, and endowed with gifts peculiarly useful in it. He is a man of the quickest apprehension, with the power of close, rapid reasoning from facts, suggestions, or even impressions. He could seize on the essential point almost by intuition, and was marvellously ready in finding the real clue or indicating the right trail. With all this he was the most discreet, the most silent and reserved of public functionaries. Someone said he was a mystery even to himself. This, to him, inestimable quality of reticence is not unaided by a slight, but perhaps convenient, deafness. If he is asked an embarrassing question, he quickly puts up his hand and says the inquiry has been addressed to his deaf ear. But I shrewdly suspect that he hears all that he wishes to hear; little goes on around him that is not noted and understood; without seeming to pay much attention, he is always listening and drawing his own conclusions.
The chief of the Investigation Department has, of course, to be in close touch with all his subordinates; from his desk he can communicate with every branch of his department. The speaking tubes hang just behind his chair. A little farther off is the office telephone, which brings him into converse with Sir Edward Bradford, the Chief Commissioner, or with colleagues and subordinates in more distant parts of the “house.” He is, and must be, an indefatigable worker, since the labours of his department are unceasing, and often of the most anxious, even disappointing, character.
Dr. Anderson’s successor is Colonel Henry, for many years Inspector-General of Police in Bengal, and more recently employed on special police duty at Johannesburg. He has been chosen for the post not alone because of his long police experience, but also because he is an expert in matters of identification, especially in regard to the “finger-prints” system and the Bertillon system of anthropometry. Mr. Macnaughten, the Chief Constable, or second in command of the Investigation Department, is essentially a man of action. A man of presence is Mr. Macnaughten—tall, well-built, with a military air, although his antecedents are rather those of the public school, of Indian planter life, than of the army. His room, like his chief’s, is hung with speaking tubes, his table is deep with reports and papers, but the walls are bright with photographs of officials, personal friends, and of notorious criminals which Mr. Macnaughten keeps by him as a matter of business. Some other and more gruesome pictures are always under lock and key; photographs, for instance, of the victims of Jack the Ripper, and of other brutal murders, taken immediately after discovery, and reproducing with dreadful fidelity the remains of bodies that have been mutilated almost out of human semblance. It is Mr. Macnaughten’s duty, no less than his earnest desire, to be first on the scene of any such sinister catastrophe. He is therefore more intimately acquainted, perhaps, with the details of the most recent celebrated crimes than anyone else at New Scotland Yard.
Nor can the detective officers of the City Police be passed by without an acknowledgment of their skill and their devotion to the public service, especially Mr. McWilliam, who has long been chief of the department. He has repeatedly shown himself a keen, clear-headed, highly intelligent official, and he has gained especial fame in the unravelling of forgeries and commercial frauds. The sixth of the so-called Whitechapel murders, that of Mitre Square, was perpetrated within the City limits, and brought the additional energies and acumen of the City detectives to the solution of a perplexing mystery.