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."