CHAPTER XIII.

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN DETECTIVES.

English Detectives--Early Prejudices against them Lived Down--The late Mr. Williamson--Inspector Melville--Sir C. Howard Vincent--Dr. Anderson--Mr. Macnaughten--Mr. McWilliam and the Detectives of the City Police--A Country Detective's Experiences--Allan Pinkerton's first Essay in Detection--The Private Inquiry Agent and the Lengths to which he will go.

Although the old Bow Street runner either retired from business or set up what we should now call private inquiry offices, the new organisation did not include any members specially devoted to the detection of crime. The want of them caused much inconvenience, and after an existence of fifteen years the Metropolitan Police was strengthened by the employment of a few constables in plain clothes, charged with the particular duty of, so to speak, secretly safeguarding the public. The plan was first adopted by Sir James Graham, when Home Secretary, and only tentatively, for the old distrust and suspicion of secret spies and underhand police processes lingered. There was something unpleasant, people said, in the idea of a disguised police: personal freedom was in danger; and the system was therefore tried on a very small scale.[19] No more than a round dozen were appointed at first--three inspectors and nine sergeants, but very shortly six constables were added as "auxiliaries," and gradually the total became 108, though this was only a small proportion of the total 6,000 which then made up the whole force.

The real intention and use of the "plain clothes" police was that they should be ever on the alert, ever at the heels of wrong-doers, and ready to follow up clues or track down criminals unperceived. They quickly overcame the early prejudice against them, and began by their substantial services to win popular esteem. Charles Dickens may be said to have discovered the modern detective. His papers in _Household Words_ were a revelation to the public, and the life portraits he drew of some of the most notable men employed in this comparatively new branch of criminal pursuit did much to turn suspicion into admiration.

A few words may fitly find place here concerning some of our later developments of this most useful and not always sufficiently appreciated class. I should be glad to do justice to the memory of one who spent a lifetime at Scotland Yard, and was long the very centre and heart of the detective department--the late Mr. Williamson. Starting as a private constable and ending as chief constable, he was, from first to last, one of the most loyal, intelligent, and indefatigable of the many valuable public servants who have deserved well of their fellow-citizens. Yet to the outside world he was probably little more than a name through all his long years of arduous and uncompromising service. Few but the initiated recognised the redoubtable detective in this quiet, unpretending, middle-aged man, who walked leisurely along Whitehall, balancing a hat that was a little large for him loosely on his head, and often with a sprig of a leaf or flower between his lips. He was by nature very reticent; no outsider could win from him any details of the many big things he had "put through." His talk, for choice, was about gardening, for which he had a perfect passion; and his blooms were famous in the neighbourhood where he spent his unofficial hours. Another favourite diversion with him, until increasing pressure of work denied him any leisure, was boating. He was very much at home on the Thames, a powerful sculler, and very fond of the exercise. He never missed till the very last a single Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, seeing it for choice from the police steam-launch--the very best way indeed of going to the race, but a pleasure reserved for the Home Secretary, the police officials, and a few of their most intimate friends. The police boat is the last to go down the course, and the first to follow the competing eights.

One or two especially trying circumstances helped to break Williamson down rather prematurely. He took very much to heart, as was natural, the misconduct of his comrade detectives in the notorious de Goncourt turf frauds. He was at that time practically the head of his branch, and some of the blame--but, of course, none of the disgrace--was visited upon him, as it was argued that his men had been allowed too free a hand. This may have been the case; but he had to deal with men of uncommon astuteness, who were the more unscrupulous because he trusted them so implicitly, with the trust of a loyal nature, true to those above him, and counting upon fidelity from his subordinates.

Mr. Williamson's active career was also chequered by the diabolical nature of the crimes which kept him most busily employed. Fenianism might have been found written on his heart, like Calais on Queen Mary's, and, closely interwoven with it, anarchism and nihilism in all their phases. He knew no peace when foreign potentates were the guests of our royalties; Scotland Yard was, in fact, held responsible for the safety of Czar and Emperor, and the police authorities depended chiefly on Williamson, with his consummate knowledge and long experience of exotic crime. It

was Williamson who was first on the scene when infernal machines had exploded, or might be expected to explode at any moment.

To him the officer who is nowadays our chief mainstay and defence against these outrages, Inspector Melville, owes much of his insight into the peculiar business of the "special section," as this important branch of criminal investigation is called. The latter not long ago disposed very ingeniously of a case which might have led to serious mischief. Fertility of resource with great promptitude in action are among Mr. Melville's strongest and most valuable traits. Well, on one occasion, during the visit to England of a foreign Sovereign, information was received that one of his subjects residing in this country, and by no means loyal to him, intended to do him an injury the first time he could get near him in public. It happened that at that moment the imperial visitor was on the point of joining in a great procession, which had either actually started, or would start in the course of an hour or so. The malcontent was employed as cellarman to a wine and spirit merchant or publican with large wine vaults. There was no time to lose, and Melville made the best of his way to the place, saw the proprietor, and inquired for a certain brand of champagne he wished to purchase. The master called his man and sent them down together into the cellars. The cellarman went first with a light; at the bottom of the staircase he unlocked the wine cellar and went in--still first.

"What wine is that over yonder?" asked Melville carelessly, and the man crossed over to the far end of the vault to look before he answered. This was all the astute officer wanted. Instantly seizing the opportunity, he stepped back out of the cellar, closed the door promptly and locked it. The irreconcilable cellarman was a prisoner, and was left there perfectly safe from any temptation to carry out the fell purpose of which he was suspected. After the procession was over he was set free.

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.

Under such chiefs as these the rank and file of our detectives labour, assiduously utilising the qualities which really serve them best--patience and persistence, following the hints and suggestions given them by their leaders. The best detective is he who has that infinite capacity for taking pains which has been defined as the true test of genius. It is not by guesses or sensational snapshots that crimes are unearthed, but by the slow process of routine, almost commonplace inquiry, after the most minute and painstaking investigation of the traces--often of the most minute character--left upon the theatre of the deed.

People whom business or chance has brought much into contact with detectives must have been struck with their ubiquity. All who have a good memory for faces or the vision to penetrate disguises will have had many opportunities of recognising them in strange places and at unexpected times. The police officer is to be met with in railway trains, on board steamboats, in hotels, at all places of public resort. He may

be seen in "the rooms" at Monte Carlo, retained by "the administration" of the casino to keep his eye on the company, or engaged on business of his own, "shadowing" some criminal or suspect. I have given my coat and hat to a detective at a great London reception in an historic house, where many of the guests were titled or celebrated people, but into which others, unbidden and extremely undesirable, had been known to insinuate themselves in the prosecution of their nefarious trade. I have met detectives at a wedding breakfast, at a big dinner, at balls during the season, and I can safely assert that these "professionals," in manners or in costume, were certainly not the least gentlemanlike of the guests assembled.

There is no better company than a good detective, if he can only be persuaded to talk--no easy matter, for reticence is a first rule of conduct in the profession, and he is seldom communicative except on perfectly safe ground. It was my good fortune once to be thrown with a well-known member of one of those provincial forces which include many first-rate detective practitioners. It was some years back, and I am committing no breach of confidence in recounting some of his experiences.

"Never let go, sir: that's the only rule. I like to keep touch of 'em when once I've got 'em," he began, and he spoke pensively, as though his mind were busy with the past, and he rubbed his hand thoughtfully over his chin.

A man dressed quietly but well; his brown greatcoat not cut in the very last fashion, perhaps, but of glossy cloth and in good style; a pearl pin in his black silk scarf; and his boots, although thick-soled and substantial, neatly made. His face was hard, shrewd, but not unkindly, and there was a merry twinkle in his penetrating grey eyes, which seemed to see through you in a single glance. Although very quiet and unobtrusive in manner, he was evidently a man of much determination of character; it was to be seen in his slow, distinct way of speaking, and in the firm lines of a mouth which the clean-shaven upper lip fully showed.

"But I've had luck, I won't deny that. There was that case of them sharpers down in the eastern counties. It wasn't till all others had failed that they put me on to the job. I didn't know the chap wanted, not even by sight; and yet I was certain that he knew me. He'd been doing the confidence trick with a young man of this town, and had robbed him of over a hundred pounds. He made tracks out of the place--no one knew where. He was a betting man, and I hunted for him high and low, at all the racecourses of the country, but couldn't come upon him. We were in London, last of all, and it was rather a joke against me at Scotland Yard, where I had been, as usual, for help. They'd ask me if I knew my man, and I was obliged to say 'No.' And if I thought I knew where to find him, and I had to say 'No' to that too; and they always laughed at me whenever I turned up. I was just about to travel homewards, when I thought I'd try one more chance. There happened to be a sporting paper on the coffee-room table, and I took it up. I saw two race meetings were on for that day--Shrewsbury and Wye. I'd go for one, but which? I shied up a shilling, and it came down Wye. So to the Wye Races I went, with the young man who had been duped.

"The course was very crowded as we drove on. A couple with a great lottery machine caught my eye; one was taking the money, the other turning the handle, which ground out mostly blanks. 'Sergeant,' whispers the young fellow to me all at once, 'that's him!' pointing to the man who was taking the money. But how was I to take him? I got down, and sent the trap to the other side of the tents, then stepped up to my man and asked him plump for change for a five-pound note. He knew me directly, and showed fight. I collared him, and moved him on towards the trap, when the roughs raised a cry of 'Rouse, rouse!'--rescue, that is, you know--and mobbed me. I held on--never let go, sir, as I said before, that's the motto; but they broke two fingers of my right hand in the shindy, and it was all I could do to force the fellow into the trap, but I did it with my left, while I kept off the crowd with the other arm. But I nearly lost him again on the way, all through being a soft-hearted fool. His wife came after us, and at the station begged hard to be allowed to go down with us. I agreed; what's more, I took the cuffs off him, and let them talk together in the corner of the carriage. They nearly sold me. It was in the ---- tunnel, dark as pitch, and the train making a fine rattle, when the wife put down the window all of a sudden, and he bolted through. I caught him by the leg, in spite of my game fingers, but only just in time; and after that I handcuffed him to myself--his wrist to mine.

'Now,' says I, 'where you go, I go.' And that's the rule I've always followed since.

"The London police have no very high opinion of country talent, but we beat them sometimes, all the same--not that I want to say a word against the Metropolitans. They've such opportunities, and so much knowledge. Now there was Jim Highflyer; he'd never have been 'copped' but for a couple of London detectives. He was a first-class workman was Highflyer, and he once spent a long time in this town--not in his own name. While he was here there were no end of big burglaries, and we never could get at the rights of them. One of the worst of the lot was a plate robbery from a jeweller's in Queen Street. A man with a sack had been tracked by one of the constables a long way that night into the yard of a house, and there he was lost. The house belonged to one of the town councillors, Mr. T---- by name, a most respectable man, very free with his money, and popular. We searched the yard next morning, and found a lot of the plate in a dust-heap. Mr. T---- gave us every assistance. It was quite plain how it had come there. There was no suspicion against Mr. T----, of course; and do what we could, we couldn't pick up the man we wanted. By-and-by the town councillor went away for a long spell; the house was shut up--not let, as he was coming back, he said, and did once or twice. After he left the burglaries stopped, and I'd have thought very little more about it all if it hadn't been that I heard a man, who had been arrested for an assault, and was in ----shire Gaol, had been recognised by two London detectives as a notorious burglar, Jim Highflyer. He'd got a knife upon him, and the name of the maker was a cutler in this town; also a silver pencil-case, with the name of the jeweller in Queen Street. I went over to the gaol, and identified the man at once. It was the town councillor himself, Mr. T----. We searched his house here after that, and found it crammed full of stolen goods. You see, there it was the Metropolitans did the job. Highflyer would have got off with a few weeks for the assault, but they knew him and all about him. He was 'wanted' just then for several other affairs. He got ten years, did Master Jim.

"But the neatest and about the longest job I ever was concerned in was young Mr. Burbidge's case, and that I did in London without any help from the London police. He was in the theatrical profession; a smart young chap, greatly trusted by his manager, who employed him as a confidential secretary, and allowed him to keep the accounts and all the cash. No one checked one or counted t'other. One fine morning he went off with a big sum. He'd been to the bank and drawn a cheque to pay the weekly wages; but he bolted instead, leaving the treasury empty and the whole company whistling for their 'screws.' The manager was half mad, and he came at once to the police. The chief sent for me. 'It's a bad business, thoroughly bad, and we must get him,' he said. 'Spare no pains--spend what money you like, only catch him, if you can.' In jobs of this sort, sir, time goes a long way. Burbidge had got a good start, several hours or more; it was no use my rushing off after him in a hurry, particularly as I did not know which way to rush. So I set myself to think a little before I commenced work. The 'swag' stolen was large. The thief would probably try to make tracks out of the country as soon as he could; but which way? To Liverpool, perhaps, and by one of the ocean steamers to the States; or to Hull, and so to Sweden and Norway; or London, and so to France and Spain. I sent one of my men to the railway station to make inquiries, and another to wire to the police at the ports and to Scotland Yard to watch the Continental trains.

"The job I kept for myself was to find out what I could about young Burbidge's ways. It's the only way to get a line on a man who's made off in a hurry and left no clue. So I called at his rooms. He lived in comfortable apartments over a tobacconist's, and was a good customer to his landlord, to judge by the number of pipes I saw over the mantelpiece, all of which were as well coloured as a black-and-tan. The rooms were just as he left them--he might really have been coming back in half-an-hour, only he didn't quite intend to, not if he knew it. The chest of drawers was full of clothes; there were boots already polished; brush and comb on the dressing-table. In the sitting-room the slippers were on the hearth, books, acting-plays lying on the sofa and about the floor, a writing-desk, but not a single scrap of paper--not a letter, or an envelope, or even an unreceipted bill. He'd made up his mind to bolt, and he'd removed everything which might give us the smallest notion of which way he'd gone.

"It was just the same at the theatre. He'd had a sort of dressing-room there, which he'd used as an office, with a desk in it, and pigeon-holes and a nest of drawers. It was all left ship-shape enough. Files of play-bills, of accounts receipted and not, ledgers, and all that; but not a paper of the kind I looked for. I made a pretty close search, too. I took every piece of furniture bit by bit, and turned over every scrap of stuff with writing on it or without. I forced every lock, and ransacked every hiding-place, but I got nothing anywhere for my pains. The manager was with me all the time, and he didn't half like it, I can tell you. No more did I, although I wouldn't for worlds show that I was vexed. I tried to keep him up, saying it'd come all right--that patience in these things never failed in the long run; and I got him to talk about the young chap, to see if I could come upon his habits that way. 'Who were his friends, now?' I asked. 'He'd none in particular--not in the company, at least, or out of it.' 'Ah! who might this be?' I said quietly, as I drew out of the blotting-paper a photograph of a young lady: a fair-haired little bit of a thing, with a pretty, rather modest, face, which I felt I should know again.

"The _carte de visite_ had the photographer's name on it, and his address, that of a good street. This was my line, of course. I made up my mind to follow on to London at once. Then one of my men came in to say that Burbidge had been seen taking a ticket--to London? No; only to Shrivelsby--a long way short of it. It was some game, I felt certain. He might have gone to London, and paid excess fare; but I wired to Shrivelsby, and also to town. No one like him had been seen at Shrivelsby; he hadn't got out there, that was clear. Only one person did, and it wasn't Burbidge; at least, the person did not answer to his description. It was only a man in a working-suit--a mechanic on the look-out for work. Nor had he been seen at Euston; but that was a big place, and he might easily have been missed. So I started for London at once, taking the photograph and another of Burbidge, whom I had never seen in my life. It is not difficult to hunt out who owns to a _carte de visite_, particularly when the portrait's that of a theatrical. I got upon the track of the lady fast enough, directly I went into the photographer's place. There was a likeness of her in his album, in the very same dress, and her name to it, Miss Jessie Junniper. I soon found out more too. Before night I knew that she was playing at the Royal Roscius, and that she lived in a street of little villas down Hammersmith way. I took lodgings myself in the house just opposite, and set up a close watch. In the morning, early, Miss Jessie came out, and I followed her to the Underground Railway. She took a ticket for the Temple Station. So did I, and I tracked her down to the theatre. Rehearsal, of course. Three hours passed before she came out again. Then a man met her at the stage door, a very old gentleman, who leant on a stick, and seemed very humpty-backed and bent. They went down the Strand together to Allen's, the great trunk-maker, and through the windows I saw them buy a couple of those big trunks, baskets covered with black leather, such as ladies take on their travels. ''Um,' thought I, 'she's on the flit.'

"I was only just in time. Then they went down to Charing Cross Station, and so back to Hammersmith. The old gentleman went into the house with Miss Junniper, and stayed an hour or two, and then took his leave. Next day Miss Junniper did not go out. The boxes arrived, and towards midday an oldish lady--a middle-aged, poorly-dressed, shabby-genteel lady--called and stayed several hours. But no Burbidge, and nobody at all like him. I began to feel disappointed. The third day Miss Junniper went out again to rehearsal; the old gentleman met her as before, and the two drove in a cab to the City. I followed them to Leadenhall-street, where they went into the offices of the White Star Line. I did not go upstairs with them, and somehow I lost them when they came out. I ought to have guessed then what I did not think of till late that night. Of course, the old gentleman was Burbidge himself. He was an actor, and a nipper, therefore, at disguises. He'd been play-acting all along. He was the mechanic at Shrivelsby, the shabby-genteel old lady, and the old man most of all. I won't tell you how I cursed myself for not thinking of this sooner. It was almost too late when I did. My gent. had left the villa (to which they had returned), and he did not come back next day, nor yet the day after; and I was nearly wild with the chance I'd lost. He'd got 'the office,' that's what I thought, and I was up a tree. But the third day came a telegram for the young lady. I saw the boy deliver it and go off, as though there was no answer. Then she came out, and I followed her to the telegraph-office. I saw her write her message and send

it off. I'd have given pounds to read it, but I couldn't manage it; the clerk--it's their duty--wouldn't let me. I was countered again, and I was almost beat, and thinking of writing home to say so, when I saw Miss Junniper's message in the compartment where she had been writing. She'd done it with a hard pencil, which showed through. There was the address as plain as ninepence--no mystery or circumlocution--'Burbidge, King's Head Hotel, Kingston.' I was there the same evening, just before his dinner. I asked if Mr. Burbidge was there. Sure enough. He wasn't a bit afraid of being took, I suppose, so far off the line of pursuit, so he'd stuck to his own name, and was not even disguised. He gave in without a word. The tickets were on him, and in his bag upstairs a lot of the cash he'd stolen; likewise a wardrobe of clothes--the old gentleman's suit, and all the rest."

Our American cousins are, as I have said, well served by their official detectives, but private agents do much of the business of pursuit and detection, and of these semi-official aids to justice one firm has gained a world-wide celebrity. Some account of the chief and first of the Pinkertons may be introduced here.

Allan Pinkerton began life as a cooper, and was doing a thriving business at Dundee, some thirty-eight miles north-west of Chicago, about 1847. The times were primitive; barter took the place of cash payments in the absence of a currency. To remedy this inconvenience, a bank was started in Milwaukee, which throve and had many branches, doing such a good business that its notes passed everywhere, and were extensively counterfeited. A gang of the forgers had been discovered by Allan Pinkerton on a small island in the Fox River near Dundee. Wanting poles and staves for his trade, he had gone to cut them in the woods, when he came upon the embers of camp-fires, and signs that the island was secretly frequented by tramps and others. Pinkerton informed the sheriff, and active steps were taken by which a large confederacy of horse thieves, "cover-men," and counterfeiters was broken up.

The trade still flourished, however, and some of the reputable citizens of Dundee begged Allan Pinkerton to do further service to his town in trying to check it. A suspicious stranger had just come to Dundee, asking for "old man Crane"; this Crane was known as a "hard character," the associate of thieves and evil-doers, and an agent, it was thought, for the distribution of bogus notes. The villagers generally gave him a wide berth, and when the counterfeit money reappeared in the shape of many forged ten-dollar bills, this "old man Crane" was credited with being the centre of the traffic. Any friend or acquaintance of his came equally under suspicion, and Allan Pinkerton was set to discover what he could about this new arrival. He proved to be a hale, strong man, advanced in years, who rode a splendid horse. Pinkerton found him waiting at the saddler's, where some repairs were being made to his saddle, and easily got into conversation with him. The stranger wanted to know where "old man Crane" lived, and when informed, casually mentioned that he often had some business with him. Pinkerton seemed to understand, and the other suddenly asked, "Do you ever deal, any?" "Yes, when I can get a first-rate article," promptly replied Pinkerton. Whereupon the stranger said he had some that were "bang up," and pulled out a bundle of notes, which he handed over for Pinkerton's inspection, believing him to be a "square man."

The stranger proved to be one John Craig, who had long been engaged with a nephew, Smith, at Elgin, in the fabrication of false notes. Pinkerton said afterwards that he had never seen anything more perfect than these spurious notes; they were exact imitations, almost without a flaw. They were indeed so good that they even passed muster at the bank on which they were counterfeited, and were received over the counter, and had been paid in and out more than once without discovery. Craig, who appears to have been a singularly confiding person, went on to tell Pinkerton, of whom he knew nothing, that "old man Crane" had once acted extensively for him, but was now slackening off, and that a new and more enterprising agent was much required. Then he offered Pinkerton the job to work the entire "western field," and said he could supply him with from 500 to 1,000 forged bills, for which he need only pay 25 per cent. of their face value.

Pinkerton agreed to these terms; he was to raise the necessary cash and meet Craig by appointment in Elgin, the place of rendezvous being the basement of the Baptist chapel. Craig said that he never carried any large quantity of the notes about with him; it was too dangerous. His regular place of residence, too, was near the Canadian frontier at Fairfield, Vermont, whence he could quickly make tracks if threatened with capture. He kept two engravers of his own constantly employed in counterfeiting and printing; he showed Pinkerton other samples, and seemingly gave himself quite away. After this, they parted in Dundee, but the "trade" was soon afterwards completed in Elgin town. Pinkerton proceeded on foot, taking with him the necessary cash provided by his friends in Dundee. He met his new confederates at the Baptist chapel and received the forged bills in exchange for the good money.

Allan Pinkerton, in telling this story, frankly admits that he was sorely tempted to take up the nefarious traffic. He had in his hand a thousand ten-dollar notes, representing a couple of thousand pounds--spurious money, no doubt, but so admirably counterfeited that they were almost as good as gold. He would have no difficulty in passing them, and with this capital he might lay the foundation of his fortune. Pinkerton put aside the evil thought, but he never forgot how nearly he had yielded, and always sympathised with those who had been seduced into crime.

Pinkerton now lent all his energies to securing the arrest of Craig. Appointing to meet him again, he offered to buy him out and take over his whole business. If Craig would only give him time to raise the necessary funds, he would carry on the concern on large lines. Craig had no objection, and promised to furnish Pinkerton with a full stock-in-trade. Another appointment was made for a few days later in a Chicago hotel, and now Pinkerton arranged for Craig's capture. A warrant and the services of a couple of officers were obtained. Craig came, and the pair entered into business at once. Craig was ready with four thousand bills and would deliver them within an hour; but Pinkerton objected, and would not hand over the cash without seeing the bills. Craig resented this, and, becoming distrustful, broke up the conference, but on going out he told Pinkerton he would think the matter over and see him by-and-by.

Craig did in fact return, but when Pinkerton asked him if he meant to complete the bargain, he denied all knowledge of it, and, indeed, of Pinkerton. Nothing was to be gained by delay, and the officers at once arrested Craig, who was taken to a room in the hotel and searched. But not a dollar in counterfeit money was found upon him, and when taken before the magistrate he was released on bail. He appears to have used his money freely in obtaining bail, and soon bolted, gladly forfeiting his recognisances rather than "face the music." His disappearance cleared the neighbourhood of counterfeiters for some years.

It can hardly be said that Allan Pinkerton showed any marvellous acumen in this detection. But it was a first attempt, and it was soon followed by more startling adventures.

A special product of modern times is the private inquiry agent, so much employed nowadays, whose ingenuity, patient pertinacity, and determination to succeed have been usefully engaged in unravelling intricate problems, verging upon, if not actually included within, the realm of crime. I knew one who was employed by a famous firm of solicitors in a very delicate operation, which he terminated successfully, but in a way to show that he did not stick at trifles in securing his end. It was the sequel to a divorce case. The decree nisi had been granted, and against the wife, who had been refused the custody of the one child born of the marriage. The husband was anxious to secure possession of the child, but the wife, like so many more of her sex, was much too sharp to be forestalled. She had a friend waiting at the court who, directly the decree was pronounced, started off in a hansom to the lady's residence, where the child was, laid hands on it, and brought it down to Victoria Station just in time for the night mail to the Continent, by which lady and child travelled together to the south of France. A detective was at once despatched in pursuit by the husband's lawyer, and his orders were at all costs to recover possession of the child. He soon got upon the lady's track. She had not gone further than Monte Carlo. The detective found it impossible to kidnap the child, so he managed to make friends with the mother, gradually grew very intimate, paid her devoted attention, and eventually married her. When he was her husband he had no difficulty in completing his commission, and--possibly with the lady's full consent--he soon sent the child home. I never heard how his marriage--all in the way of business!--turned out.

Another story is, perhaps, more dramatic. A married man of considerable property, strictly entailed, died childless in India. The estates went to the next-of-kin, but he, just as he was entering into their enjoyment, was startled by a telegram from his relative's widow, preparing him for the birth of a posthumous child. He at once consulted his lawyer, who, after warning him that much time and money would probably be spent in the process, promised to expose the fraud, if fraud there was, or, at any rate, prove that it was a _bonâ-fide_ affair.

A year passed, and yet the next-of-kin had heard nothing of the case. At last he went to his lawyers and insisted upon knowing how it stood. He was told that the matter was now ripe; the lady had arrived with her infant son. She was actually at that moment at a private hotel in the West End.

"Go and call on her, and insist upon seeing the child. If there's any difficulty about it, go out on the landing and call out 'Bartlett!' A man will come down and explain everything."

The lady did not produce the child when asked; she said it was out in the park with the nurse, and tried all sorts of excuses, so Bartlett was summoned.

"I want to see the child," said the next-of-kin.

"This lady's? She has no child. I have been with her now for six months, and she has asked me repeatedly to get her one--anywhere, in Cairo, at the Foundling in Malta, here in London."

"Who are you, then?" both inquired, astonished beyond measure.

And "Bartlett," having completed his mission, quietly informed the lady, whom he had been watching, and the next-of-kin, who was really his employer, that he was the detective engaged to unravel the case.

With such men as this on the side of law and justice, long-continued fraud, however astutely prepared, becomes almost impossible. The private inquiry agent is generally equal to any emergency.