I don’t think Clancy—that wasn’t his name by the way—has the slightest idea to this day that he was not dealing with the same person from first to last.
CHAPTER V.
RINGING IN.
Another very important duty that a detective often has to perform is to “ring in with the gang.”
To arrest a criminal without having first obtained sufficient evidence to convict him of his crimes, seldom leads to any good result.
Often gangs of thieves organize for business, and if you get one you get all of them, as a rule, for thieves seldom have any honor among themselves, the old saying to the contrary, nevertheless.
Now to catch a gang like this it is often necessary to select a man to join them, a very ticklish business, by the way.
If the thieves are young men, you’ve got to get a young man to do the job. I’d be no use at all in such a case.
I remember shortly after the green goods case that an order came to me from the inspector to look into the matter of a gang of young toughs who were believed to make their headquarters in an unused sewer away up on First avenue.