The day of the impersonator is over. The detective of this
generation is a hard-headed business man with a stout pair of
legs.
This accumulated fund of information is the heritage of an
honest and long established industry. It is seventy-five per
cent of its capital. It is entirely beyond the reach of the
mushroom agency, which in consequence has to accept less
desirable retainers involving no such requirements, or go to
the wall. The collection of photographs is almost priceless
and the clippings, letters, and memoranda in the filing cases
only secondarily so. Very few of the "operators" pretend to
anything but common-sense, with perhaps some special
knowledge of the men they are after. They are not
clairvoyants or mystery men, but they will tirelessly follow
a crook until they get him. They are the regular troops who
take their orders without question. The real "detective" is
the "boss" who directs them.
The reader can easily see that in all cases where a crime,
such as forgery, is concerned, once the identity of the
criminal is ascertained, half the work (or more than half) is
done.
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