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UNCLE SAM: DETECTIVE
"'WHAT HAVE YOU GOT THERE?' ASKED THE MAN IN THEROAD"--_Page 6_]
UNCLE SAM DETECTIVE
BY
WILLIAM ATHERTON DU PUY
AUTHOR OF
"UNCLE SAM'S MODERN MIRACLES,"
"UNCLE SAM, WONDERWORKER"
WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS BY
S. EDWIN MEGARGEE, JR.
Logo]
NEW YORKFREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANYPUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1916, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS
PAGE INTRODUCTION ix
I THE CONSCIENCE OF THE CUMBERLANDS 1
II THE BANK WRECKER 24
III A FIASCO IN FIREARMS 48
IV THE SUGAR SAMPLES 71
V THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SLEUTH 93
VI "ROPING" THE SMUGGLERS OF JAMAICA 116
VII A BANK CASE FROM THE OUTSIDE 136
VIII BEHIND CUSTOMS SCREENS 154
IX WITH THE REVOLUTION MAKERS 171
X THE ELUSIVE FUGITIVE 192
XI THE BANK BOOKKEEPER 214
XII PUTTING UP THE MASTER BLUFF 231
ILLUSTRATIONS
"'What have you got there?' asked the man in the road" _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE"Gard turned a pocket flashlight on his own lips: 'Try to find out how they are to be shipped'" 54
"When Doctor Yen affixed his signature Gard signaled" 134
"'If one of you advances a step toward me I will fire'" 188
INTRODUCTION
May I ask you to close your eyes for a moment and conjure up the picturethat is filed away in your mind under the heading, "detective"?
There! You have him. He is a large man of middle age. His tendency istoward stoutness. The first detail of him that stands out in yourconception is his shoes. In stories you have read, plays you have seen,the detective has had square-toed shoes. You noticed his shoes that timewhen the house was robbed and a plain clothes man came out and snoopedabout.
These shoes are a survival of the days when the detective walked hisbeat; for the sleuth, of course, is a graduate policeman. He must havebeen a large man to have been a policeman, and he must have attainedsome age to have passed through the grades. Such men as he always put onflesh with age. Your man perspires freely, breathes heavily, moves withdeliberation. The police detective can be recognized a block away.
Or, perhaps, you have the best accredited fiction idea of the unravelerof mysteries. This creation is a tall, cadaverous individual, who sitson the small of his back in a morris-chair and smokes a pipe. From aleaf torn from last year's almanac, in an East Side garret, he draws theconclusion that the perpetrator of a Black Hand outrage in Xenia, Ohio,is a pock-marked Hungarian now floating down the Mississippi on a scow;he radiographs with the aid of a weird instrument at his elbow andapprehends the fugitive.
Of these two conceptions of detectives it may be said that the first isquite correct: that the graduate policeman is abroad in the land,lumbering along on the trail of its criminals and occasionally catchingone of them. His assignment to this task is, obviously, a bit likethrusting the work of a fox upon a ponderous elephant. The policedepartments, however, are practically the only training schools fordetectives and it is but natural that they should be drawn upon.
Of the second conception of the detective--the man of science anddeductions--it may be said merely that he does not exist in all theworld, nor could exist. There is one case in a hundred which wouldrequire the man of science in its solution and upon which he might workmuch as he does in fiction. In the ninety-nine there would be no placefor such talents as his.
For each criminal case is a problem separate unto itself, and there maynot be brought to it more than a trained, logical, imaginative mind,which may unfold it and see all the possibilities. There is but theoccasional call upon science, and the good detective knows when toconsult the specialist.
It was little more than half a dozen years ago that the FederalDepartment of Justice set about the upbuilding of the greatest detectivebureau that the Government, or America for that matter, has ever known.As the Bureau of Investigation it was to have charge of all the secretwork of the Government for which provision was not made elsewhere. Itwas to wrestle with violations of neutrality, with those of the nationalbanking laws, with anti-trust cases, bucket shop cases, white slavecases; it was to prosecute those who impersonate an officer of theGovernment, to pursue those who flee the country and seek to evade thelong arm of the Federal law. Its duties were vastly wider than those ofany other of the Government detective agencies.
Department of Justice cases are stupendously big in many instances. Theymay affect the relations that exist between nations, they may mean thewrecking of hundred-million-dollar corporations, the stopping ofpractises that are blights upon the morality and good name of thenation. They are endless in variety and stupendous in their results.
The Department of Justice asked itself what manner of man should becalled upon to perform this important work. It looked the tasks in theface and sought to determine the individual who would be best fitted totheir performance. When it had come to a conclusion it built a staff ofa hundred or two hundred (the number should not be stated) made up ofmen of the material specified.
That staff ever since has been wrestling with the great problems thatconfront a powerful nation with multitudinous interests. Itsaccomplishments have satisfied the Department that its judgment wasright when it established a peculiar standard for the men whom itselected to perform these delicate and difficult tasks.
I have purposely cultivated these men in many cities, have seen them atwork, have been given special privileges in my efforts to get a trueconception of them and their methods. Scores of the stars that have beendeveloped in the service have told me their best stories, their moststriking experiences.
In the end, I have attempted to evolve a character who is typical ofthis new school of detectives. I have wanted him to work in my storiesas he would have done in actual life. I have wanted him to be true inevery detail to those young men who to-day are actually performing thosetasks for Uncle Sam.
So has Billy Gard come into being. The cases upon which he goes forthhave actually been ground through the mill of which he is a part. Eachis founded on facts related to me by these special agents of theDepartment of Justice. Billy Gard is not an individual but a type--anew detective who is effectually performing as important work as evercame to the lot of men of his kind.
If the reader wants to know that his story pictures correctly thesituation which it undertakes, I wish to assure him that I have takeninfinite care that Billy Gard should work out his problems by themethods that are actually employed and that the Government machineoperates in just this way.