“I take,” said Mr. Godall solemnly, “the best paper in the world, the Standard.”
“Good,” resumed Somerset. “I now hold it in my hand, the voice of the world, a telephone repeating all men’s wants. I open it, and where my eye first falls—well, no, not Morrison’s Pills—but here, sure enough, and but a little above, I find the joint that I was seeking; here is the weak spot in the armour of society. Here is a want, a plaint, an offer of substantial gratitude: ’Two Hundred Pounds Reward.—The above reward will be paid to any person giving information as to the identity and whereabouts of a man observed yesterday in the neighbourhood of the Green Park. He was over six feet in height, with shoulders disproportionately broad, close shaved, with black moustaches, and wearing a sealskin great-coat.’ There, gentlemen, our fortune, if not made, is founded.”
“Do you then propose, dear boy, that we should turn detectives?” inquired Challoner.
“Do I propose it? No, sir,” cried Somerset. “It is reason, destiny, the plain face of the world, that commands and imposes it. Here all our merits tell; our manners, habit of the world, powers of conversation, vast stores of unconnected knowledge, all that we are and have builds up the character of the complete detective. It is, in short, the only profession for a gentleman.”
“The proposition is perhaps excessive,” replied Challoner; “for hitherto I own I have regarded it as of all dirty, sneaking, and ungentlemanly trades, the least and lowest.”
“To defend society?” asked Somerset; “to stake one’s life for others? to deracinate occult and powerful evil? I appeal to Mr. Godall. He, at least, as a philosophic looker-on at life, will spit upon such philistine opinions. He knows that the policeman, as he is called upon continually to face greater odds, and that both worse equipped and for a better cause, is in form and essence a more noble hero than the soldier. Do you, by any chance, deceive yourself into supposing that a general would either ask or expect, from the best army ever marshalled, and on the most momentous battlefield, the conduct of a common constable at Peckham Rye?”[1]
“I did not understand we were to join the force,” said Challoner.
“Nor shall we. These are the hands; but here—here, sir, is the head,” cried Somerset. “Enough; it is decreed. We shall hunt down this miscreant in the sealskin coat.”
“Suppose that we agreed,” retorted Challoner, “you have no plan, no knowledge; you know not where to seek for a beginning.”
“Challoner!” cried Somerset, “is it possible that you hold the doctrine of Free Will? And are you devoid of any tincture of philosophy, that you should harp on such exploded fallacies? Chance, the blind Madonna of the Pagan, rules this terrestrial bustle; and in Chance I place my sole reliance. Chance has brought us three together; when we next separate and go forth our several ways, Chance will continually drag before our careless eyes a thousand eloquent clues, not to this mystery only, but to the countless mysteries by which we live surrounded. Then comes the part of the man of the world, of the detective born and bred. This clue, which the whole town beholds without comprehension, swift as a cat, he leaps upon it, makes it his, follows it with craft and passion, and from one trifling circumstance divines a world.”