As great business campaigns are managed and directed from a desk in the office of the president or manager, so the ceaseless war against criminals is directed from the desk of the detective chief. For, be it remembered that the chief function of a detective force is to obtain evidence that will convict.
In ninety per cent. of all crimes which the police are called upon to investigate, the identity of the guilty person is soon established. The baffling problem is to obtain evidence, admissible in a court of law, which will convince a jury of the defendant's guilt. Even though a person's guilt be apparent to all, the difficulties in shattering the protecting wall which the law erects around every accused man or woman, are frequently insuperable. Evidence which convinces the police or the prosecuting attorney of the defendant's culpability is as likely as not to be found incompetent in court and barred from the record. The result is a verdict of acquittal and all the work of the police goes for naught.
Unfortunately for the public at large, the Lecocq type of detective does not exist outside the pages of fiction. But even were there a thousand Lecocqs, reinforced by half a thousand Sherlock Holmeses, employed on the New York detective force, it is doubtful whether their peculiar ability would prove of much practical service. Their deductions, wonderful and convincing though they might be, would never be permitted to reach the ears of a jury.
So in the end, the great detective is the one who, seated at his desk, with the reports of his dozens of subordinates before him, is able to direct their collective efforts toward a single goal—the production of such evidence as is admissible in a court of law.
Since countless writers of detective fiction have provided the public with a most distorted notion of the methods of crime detection, it may not prove unprofitable to devote a moment or two to a peep behind the scenes at the Central Office.
Captain Manning is the titular head of the bureau. He finds on his desk eleven police slips, each bearing in succinct outline the story of a crime which requires the services of Central Office detectives. Ordinarily he will assign two men to each crime and perhaps the same day, or the following one, the detectives will make a verbal or written report. Out of the eleven cases, perhaps ten will prove to be minor robberies of no especial significance, except to the victims. On the face of them, they are the work of professional house-breakers, or pickpockets or hold-up men.
Manning will deliver a list of the stolen articles to his "pawnshop men," who will inquire of all pawnbrokers whether anything on the list has been pledged. Duplicate lists will also be left with all pawnbrokers with the request that they notify the police if anyone offers to pledge any of the stolen articles.
Other detectives will drop casually into places suspected as being "fences," and closely question the proprietors as to what new articles he has purchased recently. Of course, the "fence" gives little or no information, but he thereby lays himself open to prosecution as a receiver of stolen goods should they be found on his premises subsequently.
Next, Manning starts in operation his most potent machinery for the apprehension of minor criminals. He is aware that about ninety per cent. of his detectives have little or no detective ability. They are known as "stool pigeon" men, and it probably would be no exaggeration to say that they comprise ninety-five or ninety-eight per cent. of the entire active detective force. These men, through intimidation, or money, or the granting of protection for minor derelictions, are able to maintain a staff of "stool pigeons," or crooks, who keep them informed of the doings of other crooks. It is through this source that most of the professional criminals are apprehended.
"But where does the detective work come in?" the reader asks.