A Model Detective

by Judge Clark

We had been two days at work on the case, and had not even found a starting-point. In fact, when we met to compare notes on the second evening, it was discovered that the sum total of our knowledge was precisely what it was before.

The difficulty was, it was such a commonplace crime. It is when criminals do something unusual that their detection becomes comparatively easy. There is something then to work upon. The experienced detective is at once able to limit the field of his inquiry. “Who,” he asks himself, “was able to contrive a plan like this?” And very often ingenuity exercised to conceal the authorship of crime, most clearly points the way to its discovery. But when it is a thing any one of thousands might have done, it is easy to see how greatly the difficulty of laying your hand upon the real perpetrator is increased.

That is just… Read More